This weekend, I was catching up on reruns of the Olympics. In
between all the programming, an H&R block commercial ran, which I was only
half-watching until I heard a familiar voice: that of Jon Hamm’s. I looked up at
the TV, and Jon Hamm was in a Roman costume (very reminiscent of George Clooney
in Hail, Caesar!), spouting comedic
lines. Though the commercial was somewhat funny and made me notice the ad, the
reality at all the Jon Hamm was in the H&R ad or at all associated with
such a stiff/outdated-to-me company felt super random.
I understand that brands like to use current/different celebrity
to revive interest in their fading companies or to showcase a new narrative to
the public, and that H&R was probably trying to make something as unsexy as
yearly taxes by having a celebrity predominantly recognized for being suave and
attractive as their new face. Still,
it felt incredibly displaced. It felt more as if Jon Hamm had a terrible agent
or his film career wasn’t really panning out rather than a strategic marketing
choice.
I don’t know why, but many brand endorsements by male
celebrities (except Samuel L. Jackson ones) almost always feel that way to me.
Think back when Brad Pitt was the face of a now-infamous Chanel No.5
commercial, or when Snoop Dogg endorsed the antivirus software Norton, or
football player Odell Beckham Jr. saying the line “Your shoulders were made for
greatness, not dandruff” in a Head & Shoulders ad.
In opposition, endorsements with female celebrities generally
feel more organic, with companies having female stars be the face of their
beauty or fashion brands (ie. Hamm’s The
Joneses costar Gal Gadot with Revlon). This is not to say that some female
celeb partnerships don’t feel as displaced as the Jon Hamm/H&R Block one
(ie. Mila Kunis showing up in bourbon commercials), but they just aren’t as
frequently seemingly-unaligned in feeling.
While I was pondering this, a Forbes article showed up in FB
feed that brought up something super interesting to me: that data isn’t
generally used in the process of choosing a celebrity spokesman by marketers.
The article went so far as to say that:
“Celebrity decisions are made on a
hunch, because senior marketers or agency executives have an affinity towards a
certain celebrity, or the CMO’s child likes a certain
celebrity, or these executives are relying on existing relationships they have
with talent.”
Though it’s a very skewed view, this helped me make more
sense in the seemingly random celebrity-endorsed commercials that keep popping up.
Link to Forbes Article: Why Is Data Not Being Used When It Comes To Celebrity Endorsements?
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