On my way to work this morning I was apparently exposed to over 300 brands. From the bowl of Special K and semi-skimmed milk from Sainsbury’s I ate for breakfast, to the Vauxhalls, Volkswagens and Volvos (just to name but a few) cars who drove past me on my walk to the office, and even the pair of Levi jeans, Topshop jumper and Zara coat I chose to wear to work today.
However, if you asked me to name all the brands I crossed paths with this morning, I’d probably struggle to give you more than a few dozen as although we are consistently surrounded by brands we only consciously take in a small fraction of these.
Brands are now strategically positioned in television, film, music videos and radio. Also, for many years, celebrities have been another successful tool to promote products and services; companies carefully selecting the right person who can provide a believable and authentic association with specific merchandise. From wearing, driving, eating and drinking, the influence of celebrity brand endorsements is extremely strong and often results in fans copying their idols and buying the same label.
But now, companies have now upped their game in the use of product placement and their association with famous personalities.
The other day a discussion arose with friends about social media and how apparently some celebrities are now being paid to mention products and brands on social media sites. One example was Kim Kardashian who reportedly got paid in the region of $10,000 for talking about a brand in a recent tweet.
A tweet consists of no more than 140 characters, which is more than $70 a letter! I guess it’s a simple idea that’s simple to initiate and as many stars have millions of followers, it’s a marketing tool which can potentially target thousands of new customers via popular social media communities. Gutted I didn’t think of it first.
Even rapper Snoop Dogg is in on the Twitter endorsement action. Below is a tweet he posted in association with Toyota. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t see Snoop Dogg driving around on a Sunday afternoon in a Prius or squeezing all his security crew in the smaller Yaris city car, but somewhere along the line the car manufacturing giant must have felt that the music star is a good ambassador for its brand.
American company Ad.ly has benchmarked itself as a go-between for the brands and celebs, boasting a varied portfolio of over 1,000 celebrities ready to drop in a name at the drop of a hat or more realistically for a (not so small) fee.
Therefore I wonder how long it will be until we see the trend spread like wildfire here and our social media feeds are clogged up with even more brands ‘endorsed’ by our favourite stars. I like to think that I wouldn’t be influenced by a star mentioning that they’re wearing a certain product, but I guess if Jason Statham tweeted that he was wearing a new Armani aftershave I may go and buy it to spray into my pillow at night...
So I set you a challenge. When you travel to work tomorrow morning, see how many brands you come across. I bet within five minutes you’ll have used up all your fingers and toes to count on. Then, when you get to work and check your Twitter, look at your updating timeline and imagine how different it could soon look with brand names flashing about here there and everywhere. Check your bank account in six months and total up how much you have spent on new things all because some celeb on Twitter told you to.
