Captivating Connections.

ladies, who is your favorite celeb spokesperson?

Brands often put a lot of emphasis into their celebrity spokesperson, especially since there's a lot of risk involved when you choose to have a high-profile person represent your brand.

According to a new analysis from Women at NBCU’s Brand Power Index, it's not about finding the person who perfectly fits your brand anymore; it's about finding that person who is irrevelent and catches someone's attention, an unexpected mashup.

As Melissa Lavigne-Delville, VP/ insights for NBCUniversal Integrated Media, explains, "Unexpectedness is resonating with women. The biggest movers this quarter were brands with a surprising celebrity spokesperson, like rock legend Bon Jovi for Advil. It was this unusual pairing of celebrity and brand that gained the most traction among women.”

Check out the brands that made big moves up the Brand Power Index, using spokespeople:

• Kinect for Xbox 360 used a handful of different famous faces, including musician Selena Gomez, actor David Hasselhoff (who makes appearances in both a chicken suit and cheerleading outfit) and Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, with an assist from Elmo. The brand leapt 119 notches up the 500-brand index.

• Minute Maid jumped 121 spots on the index, powered by Ty Burrell, who plays the hapless husband Phil Dunphy on “Modern Family.” (In the spots, he loses a stare-down competition with a navel orange.)

• Retailer The Gap rose 49 spots, using YouTube’s 11-year-old star, Maria Aragon, in its holiday commercial, “I Want Candy.” (The tween’s cover of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” has over 47 million hits.)

Ladies, who is your favorite celeb spokesperson?

how trendy are you?

Check out AdAge's list of what's hot (and what's not) in pop culture.

breaking down the eminem brisk spot.

I heart me some Eminem, and I really liked the Detroit spot last night, but the Brisk one annoyed me (and pretty much everyone else I talked to). 

So I found this AdAge breakdown of his two spots & integrated cultural strategy quite interesting...

It doesn't make me like the Brisk ad any more, but as both a music and marketing nerd it's always incredile to see a glimpse into the behind the scenes.

celebs don't help your ads (unless your ad features OOOOOprrraaah).

According to Ace Metrix, "ads featuring a celebrity perform no better than ads without, and in many cases perform much worse. The study, 'Celebrity Advertisements: Exposing a Myth of Advertising Effectiveness,' tested more than 2,600 television ads over the course of 2010 and found that fewer than 12% of ads using celebrities exceeded a 10% lift versus average industry norms, and nearly 20% of celebrity ads yielded negative lift scores in excess of 10%."

What does this mean for marketers?

"'Think twice,' says Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. 'The key question marketers need to ask themselves is what value does the celebrity bring to delivering my creative message,' Daboll tells Marketing Daily. 'The creative message needs to be first, not an afterthought once the celebrity is signed.'

So does this mean there aren't ANY exceptions? Of course there are...

"For cause-related ads, such as Oprah, or ads with a creative use of celebrity, such as Betty White in the Snickers ads -- then the celebrity might be worth the investment, he says. 'The celebrity adds value to the story. But in most cases, they are not used that way and result in ads that perform worse than ones that don't have a celebrity.'"

are celebrity endorsements still worthwhile?

To an extent, yes.

 "Recent studies of hundreds of endorsements have indicated that sales for some brands increased up to 20% upon commencing an endorsement deal. According to Anita Elberse, associate professor at Harvard Business School, some companies have seen their stock increase by .25% on the day the deal was announced.

There is the issue of overexposure to consider. We receive more than 3,000 commercial images a day; our subconscious absorbs more than 150 images and roughly 30 reach our conscious mind. Therefore, practice has it that if you use a celebrity-endorsement strategy, you dramatically accelerate the potential for your brand to reach the conscious mind of the consumer, especially given research from Weber Shandwick that finds peer endorsement trumps advertising.

So if word-of-mouth is the No. 1 purchase decision-maker, why are some CMOs displaying recalcitrance toward big names that can create so much brand buzz and peer recommendation? Are we witnessing the decline and fall of 'celebrity'? It's true that not every brand needs a celebrity -- it has to be relevant to the brand and the consumer. More important, if there were a face for every brand out there, it would be a calamity.

On the upside, celebrity endorsement has the power to instigate and inspire, enlighten and enrage, entertain and edify the consumer. Its inherent benefits are that it can be leveraged across multiple channel experiences (and potentially services), cuts through advertising clutter, creates a brand narrative and allows for channel-specific optimization. Ultimately, celebrity endorsement is always worth investing in if you have the right person."

So, how do you approach it?

"It's an expensive but easy option for companies, but it should be treated like a marriage with added creature comforts that make the partnership invaluable:

The opportunity to create new markets and/or tap into an activation base of fans. Such was the strategy behind Patrick Dempsey's Unscripted men's perfume for Avon.

The ability to spark sales by enticing consumers to learn more about the brand. LeBron James is one of the top three paid athletes in the world and generates a brand halo.

The means to promote a unique, relevant and sustainable brand attribute that might be hard to attain otherwise. Nike's rapid success in the golf category was chiefly because golfers wanted to lay claim to the number-one golfer in the world.

The option to build reciprocity into the partnership by supporting the celebrity endorser's brand. Lady Gaga knows how to sell, and business publications praise her business smarts as she masters social media and expands her brand beyond music.

The grounds for innovating the product/service offering.Rihanna's "Umbrella" song hit big at the Grammys, and her designs for Totes' umbrellas hit big at the retailer.

The challenge to a preconceived notion. Givenchy used Justin Timberlake's endorsement for the women's perfume Play for Her.

The collaboration that can impact the business model of the partnership. A noteworthy example is Sean Combs taking a 50/50 ownership in Diageo's ailing grape vodka, Ciroc."

what are the oddest celebrity products?

Here's a fun list of the strangest product deals celebrities have made in recent memory, including...

• Lady Gaga's Perfume Line
• Hulk Hogan's Pastamania
• Jessica Simpson's Hair Extensions
• Michael Jordan's Cologne
• Shaquille O'Neal's Shaq-Fu

oprah to sell books via iPad.

"Capitalizing on Oprah Winfrey's huge role recommending books to her fans, the iPad edition of O, The Oprah Magazine, that's expected in the fourth quarter will let users buy e-books and read them within the app itself. The app preserve the basic magazine experience but include visual tags that let users know they can see a video message from Ms. Winfrey or interact in some other way. A module on articles will let users make comments and see other readers' remarks.

Although the Popular Mechanics app debuted at $1.99 -- lower than the $3.99 print cover price because the first iteration doesn't include the print issue's entire contents -- Hearst expects to charge print cover prices or more for its iPad magazine apps.

While some of the magazine iPad editions will hew more closely to printed page than others, Hearst sees a lot more potential in iPad advertising than just reproducing and enhancing print ad pages. Including every element as it appears in print would allow Hearst to count sales toward the paid circulation guarantee it gives print advertisers, but the company has begun to believe that once enough consumers own tablet computers, targeted and tailored advertising will be much more important."

conan goes to tbs.

In a surprise announcement, TBS revealed this morning that the former "Tonight Show" host would join the cabler in the 11 p.m. time slot this November.

the new tiger woods ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIYejgkqd0o

thoughts?

is steve jobs taking a lesson in personal connection?

It seems that Steve is increasing the number of consumers he personally responds to...

"While Mr. Jobs was known to occasionally answer e-mail messages sent to his widely published address before he went on medical leave last year, he now appears to have not only resumed the practice, but picked up the pace. Apple blogs are counting approximately a dozen such messages in the last few weeks — and those are only the ones that were publicly shared.

Mr. Jobs did not respond to an inquiry about his e-mail habits that was sent to him directly, and Apple would not comment. But every indication is that the messages are being sent by Mr. Jobs himself, and they are resonating throughout the universe of Apple fans to an almost absurd degree."