Linking Celebrities with Brands via Social Media
On-line start up Adly (adly.com) is trying to make a splash in the world of celebrity endorsements. Is their service good or bad for prospective Celebrity talent buyers? I guess the answer is it just depends on what you do and what you need in the multi-billion dollar Celebrity Acquisition space. Adly’s services focus on securing influencers via social media to “amplify” your current social media program, but with Adly it’s using a “celebrity”. The term Celebrity also is left up to the imagination because with Adly, an influencer can come in many flavors. The word Celebrity is defined as someone who can amplify your social media based on their social media numbers. So it’s like the old Clairol commercial… And so and so and so…
A Celebrity to Adly is based solely on Social media numbers. No polling information such as E Polls, Davie Brown, Q Scores, etc. No anecdotal information based on their momentum in the market-place or the perception of consumers. So as an example, when Charlie Sheen was imploding from personal demons he started a Twitter account and had 1,000,000 Followers the first day. By this matrix, any company looking for a “Celebrity” to Amplify their brand would have potentially had Charlie Sheen pumped out of the Willie Wonka machine as their Celebrity spokesperson! YIKES!
When you sign-up for Adly and fill in the information it provides you the Amplification numbers for reach and increase in your Celebrity engagement. But it is my understanding, it will not give you the Celebrities that you can secure or your Celebrity Endorsement or Campaign until you confirm your involvement. Adly says they have 2,000 Celebrities signed up but over 75,000 influencers. So that ratio alone dictates that your Celebrity endorsement might not be as directed and focused as you might like. I am quite sure that William Morris, ICM and CAA has 2,000 celebrities collectively. So why wouldn’t a prospective corporation go directly to the Celebrity’s agent? Good question.
Surely the agent knows their Celebrity client’s social media scores, what they have coming up and why they are relevant. Additionally, Adly is very one dimensional. Most Celebrity Endorsement campaigns are not just social media exercises. They require the Celebrity’s picture, image and likeness. These campaigns require the Celebrity to make personal appearances on behalf of the brand at retailers or centralized locations for maximum impact. These Celebrity campaigns require satellite media tours, desk sides with influential magazine editors, etc.
Overall, Adly is a good fix for a very specific engagement in Social media activation with an influencer and a celebrity. But if your campaign is searching for a much richer and robust Celebrity activation, CelebExperts can create a Celebrity assessment document evaluating many different genres of celebrities, their relevancy and how they might be integrated into a more all-encompassing execution. Hiring or booking a Celebrity is easy. Finding the Celebrity that will actually work against your articulated ROI, now that is a science! For more information on how CelebExperts consultants can provide your company, brand or product a fully integrated Celebrity endorsement program, please e mail or call 919 459- 5426.
