Celebrity Branding: For Better or Worse

Something happened last year in the world of Asian celebrities: the normally publicly well-behaved bunch suddenly turned bad, very bad. Everything from Edison Chan filming his escapades with his many girlfriends to Zhang Ziyi sunbathing 'gasp' topless and cavorting with her billionaire boyfriend. In the western world, such scandals have existed as long as the invention of celebrities themselves and go hand-in-hand. So what's all the fuss about?

The fuss is of course that in China, celebrity fever is rife, especially amongst the young and easily influenced. This tendency to get star struck and idolise public figures means celebrity power is particularly effective and a popular 'short-cut' for brands wanting to gain awareness and project associated values. That is why so many brands are fronted by a celebrity face. The discussion then follows, if celebrities are misbehaving, isn't it then too risky to use them to represent a brand and project the wrong image to consumers? Yes and no. The risk has always been there. Every human being is prone to tripping up somewhere. The key is how people react to the trip up and how strongly they associate the celebrity with the brand.

In short, the better a job you have done in making the celebrity an integral part of your brand and your brand values, the higher the risk you face if they trip up. Take Dior as an example, Sharon Stone's negative comments about the Sichuan Earthquake being retribution for China's handling of the Tibetans had, contrary to popular opinion, very little impact on the brand's performance in China. It continues to be the #1 best selling makeup brand in China, with just over 90 department store counters in operation. This is a reflection of how little consumers truly linked Dior with Ms Stone herself, obviously some knew she was the face of their aging skincare line but she was not seen as an integral part of the brand and hence people did not let it deter them from continuing to buy.

Further evidence that the risk may be less than what common thinking leads to is the case of celebrity fragrances. Naomi Campbell, the first black model to appear on the cover of Vogue and Time Magazine has had her fair share of public critique of her behaviour, but whether it was throwing a mobile phone at her assistant, or fighting with a flight attendant, every time such news was released, sales of her perfume tended to go up or at least did not go down. This is a classic case of no news is bad news. The news brings the celebrity top of mind again and becomes a current point of discussion. Those who disliked her continued to do so and those who liked her found ways to sympathise and forgive - just as you do a good friend. This is the power of celebrity.

So in conclusion, the risk of using famous faces will always be there but as long as the general population keep star-gazing and the media keeps feeding this curiosity, celebrity branding will always be a fact of life.

As for how to best select and leverage a celebrity for your brand...that deserves a post of it's own.