Can celebrities sell anything?

If you have caught any media over the past 24 hours two topics have been dominating the conversation – the 2024 United States Presidential Primaries, and the Emmys.

That’s why when I sat down to catch up on recent papers, a study in Convergence by Ashley Hinck and Carolyn Hardin caught my eye as it looked into the influence of celebrities in presidential campaigns. Their study took a deep dive into Supernatural star Misha Collins’ endorsement of Joe Biden in the 2020 US presidential campaign. During the campaign, Misha officially endorsed Biden and took an active role in the campaign, including hosting interviews with democratic candidates and Supernatural ‘democracy watch parties‘ that nearly “broke zoom”

Hinck and Hardin interviewed Supernatural fans to better understand fans’ response to Misha’s political endorsement, and the influence that this activity had on their voting in the 2020 election.

So what did they find and what does it mean of PR? Should we start recruiting Succession’s Sarah Snook to encourage us to get our tax return in on time, or The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White for next small business campaign? Can a celebrity endorser sell us anything?

Thankfully, the answer to that question is “not quite” – with Hinck and Hardin finding that Misha’s fans were a bit more discerning of their political views to blindly follow a political endorser based on the recommendation of a celebrity. The authors found that fans are careful in considering endorsements that they deem to be outside the area of expertise of the celebrity.

This is similar to findings in other studies of the impact of celebrity endorsements. For example, RMIT’s Rob Cover and Lukas Parker, in their evaluation of the use of endorsers in COVID-19 campaigns, similarly found that fans were unlikely to directly accept health information because it was delivered by a celebrity they regularly engage with.

What Hinck and Hardin found, however, is that regardless of whether fans supported Misha’s endorsement of Biden, his involvement increased their civic activity around the election. Fans of Misha who engaged with the campaign constituted a culture around their discourse that mirrored Misha’s values of being accepting and caring for other people, being authentic and genuine, and respecting disagreements. Some reported engaging in further research and being exposed to further information about the election campaign.

Key takeouts

So what can we learn from this for public relations and social marketing campaigns? Whilst this study was qualitative in nature (which means results can’t be generalised), here is what I have taken out of this study about using celebrity endorsers:

  • Give your audience credit – Audiences are savvy, and whilst celebrities and micro-influencers have become a major information channel, your information still needs to have substance. Use celebrities to amplify your message, not to give it credence.
  • The journey can be as good as the destination – Whilst participants in this study did not blindly follow Misha’s endorsement, it suggests that his fans had higher engagement with the election campaign (and its discourse) as a result. Consider this in terms of your own campaigns and the journey that your audience may take. For example if you are using a celebrity in a health campaign, consider whether your audience is more likely to respond to that celebrity telling them to do or not do something – or to understanding how that celebrity engages with health information to make a decision that is right for them.
  • Understand the celebrity and the world of their fandom – Reading this study, I was once again amazed at the subcultures that surround celebrities and their fans, and how this dominates the discourse around particular issues within their channels. Sometimes as practitioners we can fall into the trap of judging worth based on audience size alone. Understanding the cultural and values, however, is more important in ensuring that your message is not only heard – it is understood.

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