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Kate Upton selling Carlos Jnr burgers.
Gwyneth Paltrow selling N.A.S.A unapproved healing stickers.
Kim Kardashian selling nude lipstick.
Spot the differences in endorsements.

Using celebrity and other high profile influencers to spread the word of a brand is becoming more and more potent in today’s marketing environment. This is largely down to the advent of social media and smart phones. In today’s marketing climate, an iPhone can be the most powerful PR tool a brand can utilise. The capability to reach millions of viewers via one app and one device has truly shifted how the modern marketing landscape operates. However, choosing the right celebrity or high profile influencer for the right brand is a make or break decision.

Matching Your Celebrity to Your Brand

A celebrity or high profile influencer needs to be treated like a distribution channel for the content of the brand. Similar to any other channel, the key to success is making sure the right content, is on the right channel. This being the case, not just any influencer will ‘fit’ when looking for a brand endorser. An example of the optimal situation when it comes to celebrity influencers is that of Kim Kardashian selling lipstick. Putting the brand of Kim Kardashian and a lipstick brand side by side;

The target audience is similar and overlapping;
The theme and message behind both brands, and the content or products each brand produces are similar;
The content, or product in this case is a match; and
How the influencer goes about endorsing the product, in this case via social media posts, is appropriate.

When all of the factors are combined, a successful endorsement is formed and a beneficial relationship begins.

Not Matching Your Celebrity to Your Brand

However, an issue arises when the product doesn’t match the celebrity or high profile influencer. A meta-analysis study found that using sex to sell only aids in building awareness of the product, rather than inspiring any meaningful action. The conclusion reached from this study can be viewed through the angle that using sex to sell implies that the only connection between the product and influencer is the sexual allure used to capture consumers’ attention. This leaves no room for the influencer to have an overlapping or meaningful connection to the brand.

Sex does not sell on its own, or aid in facilitating or influencing action in the audience, because the disconnect and lack of congruency between the two brands is too great. This being the case, the inference can be made much like with Kate Upton selling fast food, the danger of mismatching an endorsement may be an ineffective investment, that may work to build the brand awareness of the influencer rather than the product itself.

Damaging Brands

This is the worst-case scenario for both the brand of the influencer and of the product. The real danger is, if either brand produces negative content or stimulates negativity regarding their own brand, damage to both brands may occur. Therefore, a great degree of care and research needs to be done before entering in such a relationship.

Example 1: Gwyneth Paltrow and her healing stickers. This product was so bad NASA even came out to denounce the stickers.

Example 2: Bentley attempting to distance themselves from Paris Hilton, which had become an unintended celebrity endorsement. In this case Bentley stated that in terms of brand vs brand, Bentley and Paris is not a match, and potentially having Paris Hilton publicly driving around in a pink Bentley is damaging to the brand.

Abercrombie and Fitch

A leaf may have to be taken out of Abercrombie and Fitch’s’ book when it comes to dealing with unintended, potentially negative celebrity endorsements. A&F go as far as to publicly ask celebrities not to use their branded products in ways deemed inappropriate.

In closing

Whatever action is taken by a brand relating to their influencers, or unintended influencers, the decision must not be taken lightly. Care and respect are paramount for two brands to enter into such a powerful relationship.

The right content.
The right channel.
The right time.

Content is king in today’s marketing environment. Content distribution and connecting with the right audience is now a major focus when it comes to the online advertising space. This idea is reflected in the industry’s shift from repurposing television advertising content for online purposes, towards a complete brand integration of content for online audiences. This concept was discussed by Emma Mackenzie in a recent article in a B&T publication. However, why did this shift occur?

Online platforms determine who your audience is and content expectations

Different audiences live on different platforms. Expectations of what content audiences demand per platform also change. For instance, an ad that features on a traditional television format will be viewed in a different way, especially with the advent of the multiple screen generation, in comparison to a Facebook ad, or a YouTube ad.

Viewer attention span on various social media formats have significantly lowered, with most research showing that brands have on average around seven to ten seconds to grab the attention of its audience. Whereas, how these adverts are consumed on non-traditional channels is also a factor. Traditional television is largely consumed in a living room. In contrast, online media can be consumed almost anywhere – in the bedroom, whilst commuting, on breaks and even in the bathroom are all high ranking.

Effectiveness of purpose of traditional television ads versus online ads

These days it is difficult to garner any sort of meaningful relationship with your audience on a traditional platform like television. The new media is an alternative to the rigid structure of time slots and the ritual waiting for an entire week to satiate your curiosity, within traditional medias. This is taking away from the channels ability to engage and captivate a viewer’s attention.

Unless your target audience are retired, or you have ungodly amount of money to burn, the efficacy of using television ads alone to communicate your brand message is absurd. In contrast, online ads can be targeted, timed, interactive, and designed to be engaging to a much greater degree.

Online ads can reach highly targeted audiences as they go about their day-to-day habituations online. A person is browsing YouTube, and what a coincidence, here is an ad that directly relates to the content you are viewing. Not only that, but a clear call to action is just one click away. Browsing Facebook, wow, here is a short, attention grabbing ad that relates to the content you are already scrolling through and interacting with.

A brand’s power to reach its audience through these online platforms is huge, and therefore, the content that is created for these channels need to be differentiated and respected.

Evidence of this shift

The shift towards these non-traditional, online media sources is rapidly taking pace, and can be viewed through two lenses. Firstly, from the lens of audiences and content consumers themselves. Online content viewing is trending compared to traditional television viewing. Broken down demographically, the trend is exponential. As the audience becomes younger, the trend towards online media become steeper and steeper. As such, online is now the preferred source of media for most content consumers. Secondly, this trend can be viewed through the lens of advertisers and brands themselves. The growth of the online shift can be seen through the trend of advertising expenditure, which is growing at a much faster rate than television advertising expenditure.

Conclusion

In the future, expect more tailored and integrated online video content from your favourite brands. Online advertising is pivotal for brands in today’s marketing environment, as it gives even the smallest brand the greatest ever power to reach their audiences online. As John Filippis from MediaMath’s states:

“Video is powerful tool for increasing brand awareness and tells a meaningful, multi-sensory story that resonated deeply with consumers. It also operates successfully as part of an integrated campaign, combing digital channels such as displays, social media and mobile to create a seamless brand message – which is critical for marketers looking to maximise their presence across all media channels.”

Additional sources for further research:

John DeFilippis articles
Sensis Social Media Report 2017
The State of Traditional TV

Often fraudsters are driven by pressure; this can include the need to hold up an ailing business, personal relationships, gambling habits, extravagant lifestyles and other emotional circumstances or addictive traits.

Fraud can never be completely eradicated; however, safeguards can and should be put in place to minimise risk of it occurring and it accordingly impacting upon the business on a financial, operational or reputational level.

Evidence has shown, most frauds start off small and then when gone unnoticed escalates from there. Often fraud is not committed simply over weeks, rather over a period of a year or longer. Many of those who commit fraud do not start off with an intention of doing so. In some cases the fraudster morally justifies their behaviour because of beliefs that they ‘are being paid low’ or even that they ‘have far greater need than the company who already have enough’.

Demetri Hughes outlines several common fraud indicators learnt from the cases presented in ‘Part 2: Case Studies’, where fraud might be occurring in an organisation:

“Good indicators that sound alarm bells that fraud is a risk, include:

Poorly organised offices and/or accounting systems.
Poorly managed or unquestioning obedience of staff.
Low morale and/or high staff turnover.
Complex structures.
Remote or poorly supervised locations.
Unexplained expensive lifestyle of a staff member.
Untaken holidays, particularly when the person is the bookkeeper or who has access to money.”

Demetri continues by discussing technological solutions used to combat spending fraud.

“Businesses are increasingly looking to technology to implement safeguards across the organisation to protect themselves against fraud, ways to do so include implementing usage of:

>>> Card reconciliation software:
Ordinarily purchasing cards allow staff to obtain goods/services directly from a supplier, bypassing the normal procurement processes (paperwork then needs to be reconciled). Software should be used to automate this process, providing greater control over spend with suspicious spending or unusual spending patterns able to be identified quickly.

>>> Spend analytics software:
Usage of software can be implemented providing a single view of organisation expenditure, allowing for quick detection of anomalies. Accidental errors that this solution would easily highlight include, billing mistakes and invoice miscalculations, which can then be traced back to the managers, also allowing for detection of potential weak spots with loopholes accessible by fraudsters.

>>> Electronic document management:
If the collapse of Enron in the United States of America demonstrated anything, it was how easily bad agents can destroy paper documentation. Additionally, paper documents are easily doctored by some to create false audit trails.

By using a secure electronic documentation management system, this enables for all invoices, purchase orders and financial documents to be imaged and stored in an electronic archive. Accordingly, these documents cannot be altered, shredded or ‘lost’, as such creating comprehensive audit trail.”

Fraud has the potential to destroy long-standing and otherwise strong companies. However, it does not have to have that kind of power.

Companies can and should implement strong checks and balances to mitigate risk of fraud, so that if a fraud were to take place it can be detected when it is still minor in size, before it escalates in severity, whereby the fraudster becomes more brazen to commit very large fraud, resulting in the company losing significant amounts of money. Similarly, strong brand protection planning strategies, allow organisations to have a comprehensive but actionable plan in place, to address stakeholder concerns quickly and smoothly.

Having extensive Issues & Crisis Management and Risk Mitigation planning, processes and systems in place allow businesses to return back to the normal order of operations, without the complete eroding of confidence when fraud does strike. There is a pressing managerial decision to be had, spend some funds now to ensure planning and systems are in place to combat fraud or alternatively, face one of the greatest existential threats an organisation can come up against, that likely would cost significantly more.

If a business believes fraud is already taking place, it is critical to obtain professional advice immediately. 1Up Communications is experienced in working with a clients’ senior management, lawyers and other stakeholders to implement a rapid response plan to handle fraud.