The Art of Celebrity Campaigns

In a perfect world a brand holds space for the celebrity to do what they do best - fascinate us, open up perspective on our own lives, and ultimately : entertain us.

I watch this premise fall flat all the time, when a celebrity is slapped on a brand like an ornament. Or the celebrity may even have their own brand, but you don’t feel the connection. It’s disingenuous. An audience feels if there is real skin in the game - If the brand has gone the distance. The proof is in offering them a new and relevant piece of entertainment, driven by an artist who innately supports the core spirit of the brand voice.

A lot of not getting it right is from a lack of imagination and a hold over from having a captive audience on linear TV. Brands often get caught in their own bubble and fall in love with the production value or just the fact that they are able to trot the celebrity out in front. But people don’t care. Especially audiences with a choice.

People want…. Entertaining content. Whether it’s 30 seconds or feature length. “Flaming Hot” for Cheetos and the Barbie movie are the large format version. They all delivered on entertainment. Yet drove the brands to new heights. So did the packaging for ‘Liquid Death’ water — a great example that people want creative without all the baggage of marketing that stinks of trying too hard to prove the brand to you.

Management can find it hard to let go of the desire to make sure the brand is clearly for sale. Entertainment doesn’t work that way, it doesn’t work when it’s obvious. The solution is having trust and getting the right people in place that understand constructing entertainment and also branding. Not many agencies do that. It comes down to having the right creative leads and a strong account manager.

It’s no longer how to attach creative to the brand, you have to dig deeper to uncover how the core brand truths are inherently drivers of the creative and the celebrity in turn is the right choice for that creative.

And like any good tv show, when you get it right, you must serialize. A series on a theme with a strong lead that expands the world and voice of the brand is the holy grail. I think there can be a lot more offered in this space in short form, 5, 15 and 30s. Short form is driving billions in traffic and very few brands have broke that code. There’s a lot of trying to retrofit influencers into creative that goes beyond their capacities. Serializing short form for brands and doing it well, is critical for real forward motion in emerging marketing spaces.

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