Create Brands with Celebrities — Basic Framework
Fame is attention — and with enough attention, you can generate passive/active income.
In the last decade, there is a new business which has developed in India is of creating Brands with Celebrities. It had started with Bollywood (Being Human, HRx), Sports (Wrogn, One 8) and now to digital Celebs (Youtubers, Instagram, etc.). Every celeb must explore creating an extension before reaching the peak of the career (it is called Bell Curve) as shown in the figure above.
Once you begin the work before the peak of the career, the people and the stakeholders would believe in you naturally. They would be more open and supportive for you. If you start after your peak, there would be fewer people who would believe in, you and would only think it about as another endorsement. When Being Human was created, Salman was not at his peak (he peaked between 2010–2018) but this Being Human is established Brand with more than 10 years of sales and connection with consumers.
The following are 10 steps should be done for the launch of Brand with the Celeb :
1. Persona of the Celeb — What is the persona of the Celeb and what it stands for. E.g. Hrithik Roshan Persona stands for Fitness and Style. Hence sportswear, athleisure is perfect/natural fit for him. It should be the core of the Celeb persona and what it stands for organically rather than force-fitting. Consumers are very knowledgeable and connected today and can find this very easily.
2. Existing Community and Engagement — Need to evaluate the existing community of Celeb on Digital and social media and see what & how they engage with the Celeb. There are various social listening tools available which can give you this information. Also, you will understand the size at present to determine the nature and scale of the Brand launch.
3. Expert On-Boarding– Launching a Brand is a complete business in itself, and the Business experts should run it. In most cases, the big talent management agencies are building these capabilities inhouse now, and other independent Celebs are working with experts. This is very critical for the success to have subject matter experts — the chances of success becomes high.
4. Research and Brand Thinking — Post the initial research and having experts on board you need to start connecting the Dots :
a. Persona of the Celeb
b. Existing community, Level of engagement and Growth Trajectory
c. Gaps in the market — Is it a Physical Product, Digital Product or service, Content Creation — Live-Action, Animation etc.
This should give start to Brand thinking and built up of Brand and Business preposition.
5. Brand Definition — Once the above dots are connected, we need to start the Brand Definition: Name, Logos, Purpose (of launching this brand), Why (this brand exist), Bible (Do’s and Don’ts). This is a critical step and it should be completely aligned with the Celebrity and should come from the core.
6. Business Model — Who is investing in the Brand team, marketing, product, distribution etc. There are various models available, and new models are emerging every day, which more collaborative between Celeb, Business Experts, Licensees / Manufacturer/ Content companies as the case may be. The risk, investment and up
7. Align the Vision — There should be a clear vision for the brand and should have a social impact at the core. This is very important for any new brand creation with the youth
8. Products/ Content/ Service — Consumers/ Fans don’t need any new product they need better product/content/service. A huge emphasis should be given on what are we offering to the consumers and how it is going to help him in their life.
9. Launch Phase — Determine how to win. What are the strengths, emotional connect, transparency and Authencity we are bringing to the consumers? Which distribution partner to choose for the launch. In case of product — online an efficient way to launch/test the offering and then moving to a larger base. Efficient PR, marketing, Collabs planning for the launch.
10. Monitoring & Engagement with Consumers — Once the launch, there should be constant engagement with the consumers. What is working, what is their reaction, how we can improve, what they don’t like. Consumers today want to participate in the journey and need recognition for that. This can be done on Brand’s Website, Social Media, speaking with them on phone/video, marketplaces etc.
This is a powerful way to generate more money, connect deeply with fans and also create an impact on society.
Wishing you Blockbuster success !!
