Influencer Marketing vs Celebrity Endorsement

For decades, celebrities have been endorsing products and influencing the purchase decisions of the masses. But the past few years, many brands have been switching to influencer marketing. In fact, influencer marketing has become so popular that 86% of marketers were using it in 2016, according to a study by Linqia.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the marketing campaign that uses social media influencers who are experts in their niche and internet leaders. Their knowledge, experience, and reviews impact the purchasing behaviour of their followers. The most important aspect of a successful influencer marketing campaign is to ensure that the niche of your brand is aligning with the niche of the influencers.

What is celebrity endorsement?

Celebrity endorsement is a kind of marketing campaign that manoeuvres the fame of celebrities to promote a brand’s product, or service, and raise funds of awareness about a cause. The biggest advantage of celebrity endorsement is that it can help a brand attain a huge reach. The customers remember you by the names of their favourite celebrities who endorse your brand. 

Now let’s talk about the major differences between influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement

Expertise

Celebrities don’t necessarily have to be experts in the type of products they’re promoting to produce incredible results. You may see pop stars like Justin Bieber promoting Calvin Klein underwear, or Selena Gomez promoting Adidas Neo. They’re not known for being fashion designers and have zero involvement in developing those products. But, because they have a mass appeal. Millions of fans look up to them and may be willing to try anything they endorse.

On the other hand, influencer marketing works mainly because when done correctly, the influencer has expertise in the type of products they’re promoting.

Engagement

Another significant difference between celebrity endorsements and influencer marketing is that the former is more likely one-way communication. Influencers, on the other hand, tend to inspire engagement within their audience. A celebrity may be endorsing a product in a TV ad or social media ad. While those ads are meant to be seen and heard, fans can’t really interact with them as much.

When an influencer promotes a product through sponsored content or a product feature, it could result in two-way communication. Influencers have the ability to start a conversation with their followers. Not all of them may continue interacting with their fans in the comments, but they generally manage to engage their audiences enough to keep them talking about the promoted product.

Content Creation

In the case of celebrity endorsements, the brand or booking agency comes up with an idea and a storyline for promoting the product. The celebrity only plays their role and contributes their influence to the campaign. In other words, a celebrity may be the face of the campaign, but not the brains behind it.

On the other hand most influencers are experts in their respective fields. They participate in creating the promotional content, and sometimes even control the message. Brands may give them a few guidelines on what they need from the campaign, but the influencer is in charge of the voice and tone in the sponsored content. In other words, they have creative freedom when promoting the brand’s product or service.

Reach

As mentioned earlier, celebrities tend to have a huge impact on the purchase decisions of the masses. Their reach expands across various demographics and customer personas because they have built their followings through offline careers. Normally, a famous actor, model, musician, or athlete would be considered a traditional celebrity. However, in the case of influencers. Most of them have built a following on social media and other online channels. Their reach usually focuses on a specific niche audience.