Branding Lessons From Celebrities
Thanks to social media, access to our favorite celebrities is right at our fingertips. We know what they’re eating for dinner, we know when they’re at the dentist, and we know what their parents look like. We feel that personal connection with them, even though we are one of 120 million followers and they don’t even know we exist. That being said, isn’t that EXACTLY what you want your want to do with your brand?! Create millions and millions of faithful followers who love your product and want more of it and want to have access to it at all times?! YES! So let’s take some hints from these three social media slaying celebrities.
Taylor Swift
I feel like I could write for an eternity about T Swizzle’s marketing game so I’m just gonna take it from her latest album, Reputation, starting off with there is no such thing as bad press. Remember that whole recorded phone call ordeal? Of course you do because that’s what launched the basis for her entire album, Reputation. I’m saying this loosely but she took a fabricated story and turned it into a better one. And people couldn’t stop tuning in. Even Kim K fans were tuned in to see if any more drama unfolded, which was just giving Taylor Swift more hits.
Lesson Learned: Create a darn good storyline (or take one that someone has given you) and run with it.
Ariana Grande
Ari is the queen of surprise. She just dropped two full albums within five months of each other and honestly, we should have known. Her Twitter timeline is word vomit and there were enough clues to see the second album coming. Her “thank u, next” video was full of “Easter Eggs” all teasing what was to come along with Instagram posts of videos with no sound, still photos on set, and with to-be-deciphered captions, sending her millions and millions of fans into a frenzy.
Lesson Learned: Tease tease tease until the big reveal.
The KarJenners
If there is anyone that knows how to work the media, it’s these ladies, hands down. Each one of them has some kind of something in the marketplace that’s sold out on shelves everywhere and there’s a reason their TV show is called “Keeping Up.” The craziest thing about their whole empire is that it’s all based off of things that are already out there. No one is reinventing the wheel. For example, lipstick and lipliner have been around forever yet Kylie just did an interview with Paper Magazine where she said, “Why am I buying a lip liner and a different lipstick? I wanted it the same color, I wanted it to be easy…” and that’s how her Lip Kits were born. And she stays relevant by shocking her audience every now and then. For instance, a secret pregnancy. Or spending close to a million dollars on that now one year old’s birthday party.
Now let’s talk about Kim. She launched a perfume line at the same time she met with the President to ask him to grant a convicted woman clemency for a non-violent crime. The entire world tuned in and wahlah! Her perfume just so happened to be sold out within hours of the launch as well. Coincidental timing?! I think not.
Lesson Learned: Pair a product launch with a PR stunt that has nothing to do with the product.
Now that we’ve discussed how to break the internet in three easy steps, 1. finding some inspiration and running with it, 2. teasing your product, and 3. staging a PR stunt that has nothing to do with your product, now you too can break the internet, celebrity status!