In 2019, those of film fame accounted for 62% of ads featuring a celebrity, the equivalent today is around 51% (Source: Kantar’s LINK+ database). Conversely, the proportion of global TV and digital ads featuring sporting personalities has in comparison, doubled over the course of the past five years, accounting for around 18% of ads that include someone famous. This is a trend that has been on the rise post COVID and isn’t only a feature of 2024s incredible year of sport.
Source: Kantar LINK+ database
Featuring a celebrity isn’t a guarantee of increased advertising effectiveness
The incremental cost of using a celebrity, regardless of type, doesn’t always pay off. Ads featuring a celebrity are on average more able to elicit an emotional reaction on people’s faces, but this alone isn’t enough to ensure ads are effective. Kantar’s LINK advertising research database shows that the average long term brand building potential of digital ads and TV ads is the same, whether an ad features a celebrity or not. Given the incremental investment required to feature them, knowing what they can contribute and to how to use them effectively is essential.
Why sport and sporting stars?
Sport per se has huge positive associations, benefits, and emotions that brands can tap into. Nelson Mandela understood the true power of sport. He used sport, boxing training specifically, to support his own well-being. In his 1994 autobiography 'Long Walk to Freedom', he wrote:
Source: Nelson Mandela, 1994 autobiography: 'Long Walk to Freedom'
He also knew that sport has a unique power to unite people. “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand”.
One of the most famous demonstrations of this, a moment that changed history, was at the final of the 1995 Rugby world cup when Nelson Mandela, wearing a Springbok rugby shirt and cricket cap, presented the Webb Ellis Cup to South Africa captain François Pienaar. This short video brings to life the power of this moment. The story was later brought to life in the film Invictus.
As sport is something people are deeply and meaningfully engaged with, tapping into this connection can make interactions with your brand more meaningful and memorable. Dove and Nike’s body confident partnership is a great example of how brands can tap into sport to make a positive difference to people’s lives, an initiative that is authentic to both brands given their track record as activist brands.
What potential benefits do Sports stars bring and how can advertisers maximise the fitness of their marketing activities featuring them?
Sports stars can act as a very effective attention magnet
In a world of bombardment, sports stars can help your ads break through the clutter. This ‘borrowed interest’ is one of the key motivations to use a celebrity. On average, ads featuring sports stars over index versus others on their ability to earn attention and are actively engaging, landing in the top third of all ads on this measure. They also evoke more emotional reactions on people’s faces, which is key to earning attention and creating memories.
Ensuring your sports star is famous amongst the audience you want to reach is key. Increasingly sports stars are attracting huge numbers of social media followers and are often famous for more than their sporting prowess. Having grown up as consumers of media themselves, more so than the generations that came before them, young sportspeople today recognise how to use it to their advantage. A common challenge with using famous sports personalities like Ronda Rousey, Sachin Tendulkar, Alex Morgan, Serena Williams and so on, is that they are used by multiple brands. In the Euros, David Beckham featured in ads for Walkers, Adidas and AliExpress, this in addition to existing associations with Hugo Boss, Shark Ninja and the appearance of his hand in a series of out-of-home ads for Stella Artois in March!
A potential pitfall, that can radically undermine the effectiveness of your ads, is that the sports star steals the show, and your brand fails to be noticed or remembered. The risk: you’re spending hard earned media money to make the sports star more famous and loved instead of your brand! Ads that are well branded achieve this by leveraging all the different ways to strengthen branding. People often think that strong branding is reliant on distinctive brand assets. This is important, but they are not the singular driver of effectiveness. Strongly branded ads fit with what people already feel and think about the brand and feel that only that brand could be the one to feature in it.
Another way in which these ads succeed is by ensuring the brand is intrinsically linked to the part of the ad that people will remember; at Kantar we call this the creative magnifier. The brand is at the heart of what’s memorable, instead of behind left behind on the starting blocks. The Heineken 0.0 multi-channel campaign featuring Max Verstappen is an inspiring example of how to get this right. This brilliant digital ad puts the brand right at the heart of the drama in the ad by asking the audience which ‘Max’ should drive: the one drinking Heineken or the one who isn’t? This acts as a brilliant hook to attract attention with intrigue keeping people with the ad until the reveal at the end. The magnifier moment not only connects to the brand, but also to the zero-alcohol message.
Source: Heineken
Tap into what sports stars are famous for, often more than their sporting prowess!
When used optimally, celebrities bring more than attention grabbing power. Advertisers need to understand what the individual is really known for. This OOH ad for Prime Video, featuring Premier League stars Harry Kane, Jack Grealish and Bukayo Saka, helps land the intended message with clever dual branding for both Prime Video and Amazon.
Increasingly, brands are creatively tapping into what sports are famous for, both within and beyond their sporting achievements. When choosing which sporting star to feature you need to ensure there’s a fit between what they are famous for, your advertising objectives and your brand. This power triangle fuels the effectiveness of sports ads. Your brand – and what you want to communicate – should align with the sports star. All three need to be at the heart of the ad, and the story being told, not an adjunct to it.
Aldi pledged 10 million meals to families facing food poverty through their partnership with Neighbourly. They tapped into Marcus Rashford’s fame for tackling food poverty. Aldi’s humorous reinterpretation of an existing story led to the footballer being renamed ‘Radishford’ in the very effective 'A Christmas Carrot’.
Likely the most famous of these is the Cannes Grand Prix Creative effectiveness winning 'Dream Crazy' series of ads featuring Colin Kaepernick and Serena Williams. These ads tap into the sporting fame of these two incredible athletes and their political and human values, values that resonate globally.
Kantar’s LINK database provides evidence of the positive impact that a connection with sporting stars can have. The Progressive Unstereotype Metric, developed by Kantar in partnership with the Unstereotype Alliance, has proven that portraying people in a positive nuanced way is not only the right thing to do, but is a no brainer when it comes to creative effectiveness and resulting sales. Ads that feature male sports stars over index on this measure for both TV and digital advertising, landing in around the top third of all ads on average. In comparison, male portrayals in ads featuring male film and movie stars fall in line with the average. The way women are portrayed in ads featuring female sports stars is particularly positive in digital ads, landing in the top 20% of all ads for the Progressive Unstereotype Measure. In TV ads however, the portrayal of women in ads featuring female sports stars is in line with the average, showing there is potential to further optimise the way they are shown.
Source: Kantar LINK+ database in partnership with the Unstereotype Alliance
Sport and sporting celebrities offer deeper, truly memorable engagement opportunities beyond advertising
A connection with sports stars offers opportunities to extend into new contexts and additional activations that go beyond advertising. Engaging with sports stars, and the sporting events that they are connected to, can bring fantastic opportunities for engagement beyond traditional advertising. Rexona for example, as part of its UEFA Euros 2024 activity, gave people an opportunity to go to a quarter final match in Hamburg and meet footballing legends as part of the experience. Highly sought after experiences like these offer an opportunity to build databases for direct-to-consumer marketing activations and for participants create memories that last a lifetime.
If you’re developing marketing activity that involves sports stars – or any kind of celebrity - you need to make informed decisions that will ensure your marketing is fully fit and will deliver that winning feeling! At Kantar we help our clients partner with celebrities effectively. Contact your Kantar representative or reach out to sarah.hazlehurst@kantar.com to find out more.