Thinking of spending your ad budget on a celebrity? It'll make no difference, says report
Don't waste your entire advertising budget on a celebrity (Z list right up to A list). According to Unruly's latest study, it's probably a waste of money.
According to a report from Unruly, celebrities alone do not drive online ad sharing.
Looking at major televised events such as the Super Bowl as a case study, where advertising space is hotly contested, the report indicated that success is no longer viewing figures, but rather online shares.
This year in particular saw very few viewers citing celebrities as a key driver of why they would share an ad, despite celebrities being out in force during Super Bowl 2014. Arnold Schwarzenegger, U2, Ellen DeGeneres, The Muppets, even Bob Dylan, all made an appearance this year. Surprisingly, online shares of adverts that aired during the 2014 Super Bowl decreased by almost a third from the previous year, which is the first time that shares of Super Bowl ads have decreased year-on-year.
None of the top three most shared ads from Super Bowl 2014 featured celebrities, and therefore the data suggests the presence of celebrities in a video doesn’t correlate with online sharing.
Only three of the top 12 Super Bowl ads and one of the top five Super Bowl ads include celebrities. Meanwhile, other big campaigns starring Ellen Degeneres (Beats – #36), U2 (Bank of America – #20), Bob Dylan (Chrysler – #15), David Beckham (H&M – #22) and Stephen Colbert (Wonderful Pistachios – #33) failed to make it into the top 12.
Interestingly, econsultancy have pointed out that celebrities do not make an ad more intrinsically shareable, and they also can detract from the message in the advert or even the brand name itself. For example, 93% of people who watched Bob Dylan’s Super Bowl ad didn’t even realise it was for Chrysler. 12% of viewers thought it was an advert promoting the campaign to revitalise Detroit, 3% thought it was to promote America while some 4% thought it was a spot for rival Ford.
This trend is not just restricted to the Super Bowl. Despite brands using celebrities for many of their ads, only 13% of the top 100 shared ads of all time feature star names.
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