Tattoo Projects Born to Blog

August 11, 2010

The Future of Celebrity Endorsements

Getting a celebrity to be featured in an advertisement is not an easy process.  It can take months of back and forth negotiating before any photos or film can be shot.  The current way of doing things is not only inefficient; it is unrealistic for many advertising vehicles.  Banner ads, for example, are rarely ever going to invest tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours just feature a famous athlete in a banner ad for a short period of time.

Not only is this current system inefficient, it is also dangerous.  Take the Tiger Woods scandal for example.  He was the face of Nike and when his name was dragged through the mud, so was their brand name.  Nike joined the ranks of the dozens of companies that learned the hard way that brands should diversify its celebrity endorsements.

Ryan Steelberg, an advertising technology entrepreneur, has been offering a solution to these very problems since 2007.  His newest creation, Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT), provides a database of generic second-tier celebrity endorsements.  Steelberg’s company has done all the work, signing over 3,600 American celebrities.  After just 20 minutes of standing in front of green screen pretending to point to or hold a product, BAT offers the endorsements to the public.

Clients don’t have to negotiate or spend massive amounts of man-hours getting access either.  All the endorsements have a set price depending on the person’s fame and the duration of use, so there is no negotiating.  A process that would typically take months is cut down to just 96 hours.  The athletes and other celebrities have only 96 hours to allow or reject the client.

Not only is this system great for athletes who cannot afford constantly traveling photo shoots and the like, but it also opens up who new doors for advertising vehicles such as banner ads.  Companies can get a well-known athlete’s endorsement for as cheap as $5,000, and diversify the celebrities with just a couple clicks of the mouse.

Make no mistake; the quality of the work is nowhere near the level of its more expensive alternative.  Also BAT’s service is very limited in possible applications of the endorsements.  So is it part of the future celebrity endorsements or a merely a service for second and third tier companies?

Tags: advertising, future

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