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Concept
Celebrity branding
Summary
Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy which uses a celebrity's fame or social status to promote a product, brand or service, or to raise awareness about an issue. Marketers use celebrity endorsers in hopes that the positive image of the celebrity endorser will be passed on to the product's or brand's image. Non-profit organizations also use celebrities since a celebrity's frequent mass media coverage reaches a wider audience, thus making celebrities an effective ingredient in fundraising.
In the 1700s, Wedgwood, producers of fine chinaware, used royal endorsements as a marketing device to show value in the company and promote their product. In 1882, London socialite and West End stage actress Lillie Langtry became the poster-girl for Pears Soap, making her the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. In the late 1800s, trading cards were introduced, a card with an image of a celebrity and a product description which was either given to the customer or inserted in product packaging. Cigarette companies gave away baseball cards as part of a customer loyalty scheme, and the increased demand to buy cigarettes in order to collect entire sets of baseball players was not missed by marketers. Early endorsements of this kind didn't always have the permission of the celebrities to use their image. In the 1930s the trend was toward athletes where the first celebrity and athlete to be paid to endorse a brand was “Babe Ruth. This occurred in the 1930s and the brand was Red Rock Cola which is a beverage company.” and then by 1945, the trend changed to movie stars. In 1965 when color television was introduced, television personalities and entertainers became the celebrity endorsers. In the 1980s, companies started making products around celebrities, for example Nike using Michael Jordan to boost their brand to international megabrand status.
In the 1970s, with the advent of free agency, the value of celebrity endorsements escalated, and correspondingly the pay of the athletes by their teams.
Official source
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