Celebrity branding

Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy used by brands, companies, or a non-profit organization which involves celebrities or a well-known person using their social status or their fame to help promote a product, service or even raise awareness on environmental or social matters. Marketers use celebrity endorsers in hopes that the positive images of the celebrity endorser of the brand will also be passed on to the products or the brand image associated with the celebrities. Celebrity endorsement is usually commonly used by fashion or beauty brands, but a non-profit organization relies on celebrities as well, as celebrities have mass communication skills which can attract people's attention and is helpful in reaching a wider audience to raise their awareness towards a certain organization or an issue. Thus, making celebrities effective fundraisers.

Celebrity branding is also known as celebrity endorsement, and is a form of publication by portraying a well recognized sports or entertainment celebrity to be a brand ambassador for a company or firm, and by using their social status to promote a service or product (Udo, Nwulu, & Stella, 2015).

Through the 1760s, royal endorsements were used as a type of celebrity branding to promote products. The first product that used celebrity endorsements was in the 1760s, where a company called "Wedgwood" who produced pottery and chinaware, used royal endorsements as a marketing devise to show value in the company and promote others their product ("Celebrity Endorsement – Throughout the Ages,"2004).

In 1875–1900s trade cards were introduced, this is where there would be a picture of a celebrity with a photo of the product. Typically, these trade cards would be given to consumers with the product or would be inserted on the packaging of the product itself, which would feature celebrities such as actors or sport stars.

Cigarette brands became hugely involved in celebrity branding, 'Kodas' cigarettes introduced baseball player cards into the packets of cigarettes as part of a customer loyalty scheme. This created a demand for consumers to buy more cigarettes so they could gain all the cards of all baseball players due to celebrity endorsement of the cards.

In the early 1930s the major trending celebrity endorsers were athletes, then by 1945 the trend changed and movie stars were the next big celebrity endorsers. In 1965, colour television was introduced to the marketing and there was a popular rising demand which was occurring, this in when television personalities and entertainers became a celebrity endorsement for communicating services and products.

Companies and firms in 1980s then decided to start making products around celebrities ("Celebrity Endorsement – Throughout the Ages," 2004). An example of this is in 1984 when the company Nike noticed a talented and young basketball player called Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan, then became Nike's celebrity brand ambassador for their sports industry. Nike extremely relied on Michael Jordan's social status to make the brand internationally well known.

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