Is hiring a celebrity a smart marketing tactic? Be careful: Celebrity endorsements can backfire for several reasons. We’ve worked with professional athletes, TV stars and other A-list celebrities. We’ve found that even though clients are excited about a celebrity doesn’t mean that the media shares their enthusiasm.
The reason why media stories are so good at building brands is that reporters and producers are sticklers for credibility. They have to serve – and answer to – their audiences. So they only run stories of a certain caliber, and they prefer to interview people who their audiences will relate to. Much of the time, that means a non-celebrity spokesperson: Someone in their community or someone whose career field is familiar to their audience such as a pharmacist, physician or teacher.
Paid celebrity endorsements make most reporters suspicious. Because they are less likely to result in bookings, they can also take a big bite out of your budget without getting you much in return. And if a celebrity takes a spectacular, headline-making fall from grace, he or she may even damage your brand’s credibility.
Experts and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) can fit just about any PR budget. To identify the right person to talk with the media about your product, ask yourself:
• Are they credible? What are the person’s credentials? How do they earn a living? Reporters would prefer to interview a successful, experienced roofer about your groundbreaking new shingle design than your marketing person. As a consumer, who do you want to hear from? For example, it speaks volumes when a cardiologist discusses how well a heart-health product performed in a study.
• Is the person comfortable talking with the media? Will he or she remember to mention what differentiates your product from the competition?
• Is this person’s schedule flexible? There’s nothing worse than getting a producer excited about booking an interview only to discover that your spokesperson is unavailable for several weeks.
We help identify our clients identify credible experts/KOLs who will deliver all the right messaging during media interviews. KOLs may be found within a client’s company, or we may use our connections to introduce clients to appropriate experts.
With our Pay Per Interview fee structure, the expert/KOL spokesperson model is scalable for just about any budget. You determine how often you want to use them, and in what capacity. Then you put us to work arranging for them to be interviewed, quoted or do on-camera demonstrations. Depending on your product, we might also suggest having different spokespeople available so that we can offer options to the media.
Selecting and coaching the right spokesperson is so critical that it’s something we do for nearly all of our clients. Call me to discuss who we might suggest using as a spokesperson for your PR campaign.
