Marcus Peterzell, Managing Director of Fathom Communications told DM News:

“Yes. We all listen when celebrities speak. Why? They are famous, rich and most often attractive, so they must know what they’re talking about. That’s how they got famous in the first place, right?

The truth is that paid celebrity endorsements are proven marketing vehicles. Even though we all know the spokesperson took a nice check for the ad, it somehow still resonates with many consumers.

With the growth of social media, everyone has a soapbox. All you need is a laptop. We can now get instant product reviews and opinions on just about anything. However, it’s not necessarily the case that we trust the opinion of nonpaid consumers more than we trust celebrities.

Younger consumers, especially teens, are still heavily influenced by names they know and love, and they are by far the most frequent users of social media.

Celebrities always catch our attention first. Therefore, they by default have more reach and are becoming very savvy in promoting brands organically, so we actually believe they wear that watch or drink that beer. Social media has made celebrities seem even more authentic and accessible, making them an even surer bet to marketers.

Consumers who read “personal” Tweets or Facebook posts, as opposed to a print ad they know someone paid for, perceive that celebs are the real deal and people they can connect with.

In the end, they still have the voice and influence, and we continue to listen.”

“Why is this important? First, because nothing gets attention like celebrities. Nothing.

From any and every demographic, be they rich investors and CEO’s or the “you might be redneck” crowd at the trailer park. Second, because it is reassuring to clients that you are hanging out with famous and important people. You are accepted as the kind of folks you associate with. Three, because it may stimulate pass-along or referral-producing conversation… “hey, look what my guy’s up to — and here’s what he says about…”

Of course, you immediately think you have no opportunities like this, cannot afford to contact yourself with celebrities and that this doesn’t apply to you, and you’re wrong on all three counts. In fact, just for demo, I’ll hand you a “free use of celebrities” just about anybody can use, even you! Let’s assume I send you an envelope with full-color photos of, say, Paris Hilton, Hugh Hefner next to a Playboy bunny, Sarah Palin, George Clooney and me, with the headline: What Do Paris, Hef, Sarah, George and Dan Have in Common?

– will I grab your attention? Arouse your curiosity? Get you to open the envelope? Easily done. By anybody. It is, as example, something frequently done with photos or lists of celebrities who all wear hearing aids, in advertising or direct-mail for that product. And there are plenty of other opportunities to connect yourself with as well as create your own celebrities.

I have said it before and say it again: if you are failing to connect yourself, your products, your business with celebrities, you are failing to take advantage of an important, reliable and readily available abstention-getting and selling tool — so, if you leave good tools in your bag unused, you really have no right to complain about any unsatisfactory results, do you?”

- Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Marketing Letter

“There is real persuasion power in connecting a new idea that is not known or easily understood to something that is very familiar and trusted by your prospect.

Not only is association a linking tool from the known to the unknown, it is also a tool used to link something new or improved with someone we like, admire, or respect.

For example, do you remember when Michael Jordan did commercials for underwear? What does he know about underwear that you or I don’t? That’s right, nothing. Michael Jordan is simply someone that a lot of people like, admire, and respect.

Companies will pay millions of dollars to get a famous celebrity to endorse their product hoping that the consumers (you) will want to be just like him — “just like Mike.”

- From the book “Covert Persuasion” by Kevin Hogan and James Speakman

“Once upon a time the most popular celebrities were boxed up in such slick, sleek packages it was almost impossible to get a feel for their real personalities.

Every move was choreographed, even their love lives, and even when they weren’t on the red carpet they were red-carpet ready. Those days are long gone. The celebrities of today, the ones who are making it huge by connecting with their fans, whether on the screen or online, are all about keeping it real and being themselves.

No matter how big or small you want to go, your authenticity will be at the root of your appeal and is what will keep people coming to your site and spreading the word about your personal brand, service, or whatever you are offering.”

- Gary Vaynerchuk, CRUSH IT!

In his book Exploiting Chaos, Jeremy Gutsche of TrendHunter.com tells this story:

“In 1930 fallen market shares and the Great Depression gave R.J. Reynolds an opportunity to spark change.

They began to experiment with fear marketing, claiming, “More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarettes.” Sounds healthy to me. In a time when health impacts were less known, the message created subconscious fear: if doctors only smoke Camels, should I be worried about my brand?

Lucky Strike countered with, “20,679 physicians say, ‘Luckies are less irritating.’” It didn’t matter. By this time R.J. Reynolds was a step ahead. In 1933 Camel started using athletes to associate their image with vitality.

Superstar jocks endorsed,

“They don’t get your win,”

“It takes healthy nerves… to win the World Series,” and

“21 out of 23 St. Louis Cardinals Smoke Camels!”

By 1935, the once-aging giant had reclaimed the #1 position.

In his book Exploiting Chaos, Jeremy Gutsche of TrendHunter.com tells this story:

In 1986 actors, sports heroes, and other icons appeared in TV commercials and shouted, “Don’t mess with Texas!”

One of the first commercials featured two Dallas Cowboy football players, Ed Jones and Randy White, picking up trash on the side of the road. Ed Jones grabs a can and bellows with anger, “Did you see the guy who threw this out of his window — you tell him I got a message for him!”

He then crushes the can on the side of his head and says, “Don’t mess with Texas.”

Tim McClure, GSD&M’s executive creative director, noted, “It was an attempt to get away from the ‘Crying Indian’ and look at things from the consumer’s view.”

Today the phrase can be found on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and in the vernacular of Texans across the state. Yet this is a trademarked slogan, used for the first time as part of an ad campaign.

Market from the perspective of the customer, not the advertiser.

“Don’t mess with Texas” was so effective that it became part of Texan culture and the challenge became keeping the slogan connected to its original purpose. To ensure this, the litter campaign relies on celebrity endorsements from Texan stars like Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Love Hewitt, George Foreman, Owen Wilson, the rapper Chamillionaire, and Chuck Norris.

If you knew the Chuck Norris jokes, you’d surely stop littering:

• Chuck Norris doesn’t do push ups, he pushes the world down.
• Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one dead bird.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, he decides what time it is.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep. He waits.

The celebrity messages keep the slogan in the limelight, but it can be even more insightful (if not shocking) to observe the user-generated videos on YouTube.

One video features a young man assembling a rifle in a park. When he spots a kid littering, he takes the shot and the credit denote, “Don’t Mess With Texas.” The user who made the video, firedragon15309, explains, “This is [an ad[ that I made for a competition last year. It got disqualified…”

Really? What a shocker. The user also notes that Matthew McConaughey was a judge and this video was allegedly his favorite.

You might object to this videos’ content, but it exemplifies the cultural connection made by “Don’t Mess With Texas.” In comparison to the crying actor, it’s pretty clear which campaign is more effective.

The Institute of Applied Research suggested that a reduction in littering of 10% would be above average; a reduction of 15% would be remarkable. In the five years that followed the launch (1986 – 1990), litter was reduced by 72%.

What would it take to convert your customers into advocates of your brand?

A cultural connection can have an astounding impact.

“Kim Kardashian, a reality TV celebrity famous for being famous (and for a particular anatomical attraction) has 500,000 fans on Facebook and 2.6-million followers on Twitter.

I give Carl’s Jr. restaurants kudos for attempting to leverage this existing (key word: existing) media platform. They’ve signed Kim to hawk their new salads… beginning with a live, online event that occurred in January. (The Ultimate Salad Lunch Date With Kim), 3D video, coupons distributed from Kim to the 2.6-million. I’m not at all sure about Carl’s Jr. selling salads, but I sure do like the renting of a celebrity with the list.

This changes the entire game of paying for celebrity endorsers or spokespersons in my mind: if you’re going to get one, seems preferable to get one who can deliver a direct marketing vehicle for your use. Of course, the star’s fans, friends ‘n followers need to be your customers, which Carl’s believes to be the case. Were I casting about for a celeb for an infomercial, print campaign, direct-mail, etc., I would now ask about the social-media platform they control.

Who says salads can’t be HOT?” – Carl’s Jr. has a history of tying sex appeal to its products and TV commercials, notably the once controversial campaign with Paris Hilton. More recently, steamy ads featuring a star of MTV’s The Hills. They are also frequent users of online media. This summer, they paid popular YouTube celebrities (!) to create viral videos for their $6 Mushroom Burger.”

- Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Marketing Letter – Click Here To Get 2 Issues FREE!

According to USA Today’s Ad Meter, Betty White’s Superbowl commercial for Snickers was the most popular of all 65 commercials aired during Super Bowl XLIV.

The poll, made up of 250 adult volunteers in San Diego and McLean, Virginia (the home of USA Today’s headquarters), electronically charts the group’s second-by-second reactions to ads during the Super Bowl.

The Betty White/Snickers commercial (which also featured actor Abe Vigoda) scored 8.68 out of a possible 10.

Other Super Bowl commercials featuring celebrity endorsements (in order for popularity) included Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo for HomeAway, Megan Fox for Motoblur, Troy Polamalu for TruTV, Beyonce for Vizio, Jim Nantz for FloTV, Don Rickles for Teleflora, KISS for Dr. Pepper Cherry, Brett Favre for Hyundai, Ed Begley Jr. for U.S. Census Bureau, Tim Tebow for Focus on the Family, Lance Armstrong for Michelob Ultra, Joe Montana for Skechers, Charles Barkley for TacoBell, and Danica Patrick for GoDaddy.

The two least popular commercials with celebrity endorsements featured female race car driver Danica Patrick for GoDaddy. This year, it was Go Betty, Go!

Ever wonder how Kleenex became a household name?

The Minneapolis Star Tribune tells this story:

With cotton supply short in 1914, a substitute was urgently needed for surgical bandages used in World War I battlefields and in hospitals. The Kimberly-Clark company developed a remarkably absorbent cotton-like wadding called Cellucotton. Cellucotton took the place of cotton bandages and was used in gas-mask air filters.

After the war, huge surpluses of Cellucotton crowded warehouses, and Kimberly-Clark started looking for a peacetime use for the product.

The first postwar spinoff was a glamour product — a cold-cream tissue. Called the Kleenex Kerchief and advertised as a “Sanitary Cold Cream Remover,” it was used by Hollywood and Broadway stars to remove makeup. With the help of celebrity endorsements, sales steadily rose and the product remained unchanged. But then women began to write to the company complaining that their husbands were blowing their noses in cold cream kerchiefs.

About the same time, a Chicago inventor devised a pop-up tissue box. In the early 1920s, Kimberly-Clark decided to place its kerchiefs in these boxes. Now, the product won even more nose-blowing converts, for it supplied a quick and easily accessible way of containing sudden sneezes.

Consumer demand persuaded the company to change from marketing a cold-cream tissue to selling one for nose-blowing, and Kleenex was born.

- From Charles Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Ordinary Things

The Tiger Woods scandal hasn’t kept McDonalds from hiring celebrities to endorse its fast-food chain. Last week McDonald’s signed a multi-year partnership deal with basketball star LeBron James.

According to the WSJ’s “McDonald’s Bets James Won’t Make False Step“:

“McDonald’s said Thursday that its new relationship with Mr. James will kick off with his appearances in a Super Bowl XLIV pregame commercial. The ad is a remake of “The Showdown,” an iconic 1993 Super Bowl spot in which National Basketball Association legends Larry Bird and Michael Jordan sought to outdo each other, with seemingly impossible shots, to win a Big Mac.

The burger chain said its partnership with Mr. James will include more commercials, plus public appearances at McDonald’s-sponsored events, like the 2010 McDonald’s All-American High School Basketball Games.

Greg Luckman, president of GroupM ESP, a sports-and-entertainment marketing firm owned by WPP, mainly blames the economy for the falloff in the values of endorsement deals. The Tiger Woods backlash is helping to soften the market, he says, “but the impact of that is being seen more in how the deal terms are being negotiated.”

For example, Mr. Luckman says, advertisers are seeking shorter agreements and more flexibility. “If it’s a 10-year deal and something happens, it’s a lot more complicated to get out of it,” he adds.

The biggest change, sports marketing experts say: Advertisers are crafting tougher “morals clauses,” the provisions that let them out of the contract if the star misbehaves. The clauses are getting “broader and more-encompassing,” Mr. Luckman says.

David Schwab, vice-president and managing director of Octagon First Call, a celebrity-marketing arm of Interpublic, says that refusing major corporations a greater say in morals clauses “has become a deal breaker.” He adds that the James deal is “good for the business.”

People familiar with the situation say Mr. James will appear in the pregame Super Bowl commercial with Mr. Bird and Orlando Magic star Dwight Howard, both of whom have longstanding ties to McDonald’s. The ad, Mr. James’ first with McDonald’s, was directed by “Space Jam” director Joe Pytka.

McDonald’s has a long history of using athletes in its marketing. Past celebrity pitchmen include tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams, basketball players Yao Ming and Kobe Bryant and professional skateboarder Tony Hawk.

- The Wall Street Journal