Celebrity Vs. Heroic Brands
SocialBrands.long.3
Celebrity Merchandising
As publicity and advertising grow closer together, celebrities, have increasingly been able to monetize publicity for their own gain. A powerful name or image, if repeated enough, may extend itself to a number of objects, adding credibility and allure to an othewise common product. The Trump name, through sponsorships and licensing agreements, has been said to add 10% to the price of a building, even if his firm is not even involved in the construction, planning or design of the building. Paris Hilton’s name may add value to an otherwise cheap perfume.
While celebrities themselves owe much of their power and influence to modern media - a combination of newspapers, film, television, and the internet - they have traditionally sprung from meritorious roles in the arts (primarily acting), politics, or athletics. Generally speaking, celebrities emerged from some sort of professional role that enjoyed publicity and where they exhibited some modicum of achievement. So celebrity, while not quite the heroic system of old, at least had an element of merit.
Paris Hilton represents a new form of celebrity in that her celebrity does not arise from any specific role or profession or relate at all to any form of traditional achievement. Although she shares the name of a famous American brand name, her rise to fame is striking and without precedent. Paris Hilton is first of a new breed of celebrities arising to fame from publicity and the internet, iconic but without a referent. Lacking any professional reference or specific role, any news, no matter how scandalous or dispiriting, aids the advance of her image and brand. Publicity now is sought for its own ends, as celebrity itself looses is stability as an order of signs. Celebrity no longer needs to refer to any particular role in society. This path of celebrity conforms to the path of other material objects, abolishing reference to use and function. Semiotic Triangle of Celebrity
Google Presentation
A Social or Status Tax on Consumption
Consider that the products branded by celebrity icons may be bought cheaper without their endorsement and label. This additional cost borne by consumers might be interpreted as a social or status tax paid on consumption. In sharp contrast to the scheme of the World Social Brand Market, these fees hardly go to beneficial social causes: they go inordinately to one person that typically is already wealthy. Celebrity
But magnifying income inequality is a smaller problem than the behavior modeling and imitation that comes with celebrity. Unlike the heroes of old, celebrity’s spring from roles, while highly visible, offer little chance of permanent or stable employment.
Celebrities are role models that are emulated and admired. Through product merchandising, they may become part of a personal identity. The celebrity, to whom the consumer conforms, may in fact become a guide to individual behavior.
In this way, buying products from branded, human icons like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, 50 Cent, Paris Hilton and so on, may represent more than a mere purchase. To some extent or another, as you are consuming Donald Trump or Paris Hilton, you are becoming them. So with consumption, we ask, who do we want people to be?
Our current system almost entirely honors only visable roles in the entertainment industry.
Consumption: A System of Ordering and Domination
More than a century ago Karl Marx described the legible order of domination as a simple scheme of labor and surplus value. Today it is a psychological one that is more akin to feudalism than industrial production. Status brands have re-instituted a class and caste like system where devotion and dominance is maintained by the masters of our dreams through products and images. Communication has replaced production as societal force of oppression and alienation, not so much overt but ambient.
Viewed this way, it is certainly undesirable. But keep in mind as bad as it may seem, it is superior in most ways to a rigid system of race, caste and class. Yet a superior position to this exists where status is re-socialized through a system of positive signs incorporated into consumption.
Cause based brands or icons show a sign of concern for others, self sacrifice, and support of achievement. This is a more positive and productive form of signifying consumption than our current system of sports, celebrity and corporate merchandising licensing schemes.
Branding Heroes (the new celebrity)
Has the world stop producing greatness in individuals? Or is greatness still here, alive and breathing among us, but no longer legible within existing paradigm of production, now that communication has entered the world as a productive force, vaulting entertainers above traditional societal roles.
A goal should be set to offer a new model for building human brands by finding authentic heroes and promoting the causes that inspire them. We must resist the idea that celebrities must only arise from the field of sports, entertainment and communication. Realty Television has proven that celebrities may in fact be produced just as inorganically as brands are produced from images and advertising. In a similar way, heroes may be identified from real life and then be transformed into celebrities. Their names may be aligned with marketing campaigns for products along with relevant social causes, giving both products and causes better representation. Along the way, good deeds themselves will get more attention, providing a better model of human behavior.
Wouldn’t a person that performed acts of true heroism be a better spokesperson for products and social causes than, say, an athlete whose heroics are not matters of real significance and are only made in the context of a game?
Corporations need to be pressed to do a better job in screening persons representing them. But where is the alternative? One place to look is the recent past.
Consumers want meaning. So give them meaning. Take the biggest names in modern history and align them with causes that inspire them. Resurrect them to breathe life into products and into a moribund society that still needs still needs them – a non historical society whose leading personalities are not heroes but are actors, athletes and talk show hosts.
Celebrities are both our chief culture figures and are themselves consumable objects. Licensing fees for celebrity indorsed products create a parasitic relationship to the masses. Exorbitant salaries and endorsement deals help to destroy the value of non entertainment related labor (traditional hard work) and education. Society must find a way to encourage hard work, self sacrifice, public works and the importance of education. Otherwise, we may fall away like the Romans, gluttonous, de-spiritualized, and inhumane; whose passing is remarkably similar. As the Romans glorified theatrical spectacles of gladiators and charioteers while being unable to replace its productive stock of engineers, city planners and architects, she fell into decay and ruin.
As alternatives to Trump, Martha, Paris and Diddy, Snoop Dog, Tiger, Peyton and Britney, we might offer Mandela, Gandhi, Einstein, Tesla and Madam Curie; Van Gogh, MLK, Neil Armstrong, Frank Lloyd Wright and Denton Cooley.
The list of persons above begs a question: Is a society that most admires persons from the first list, capable of producing persons on the second?
Given the complete vacuum of bona fide historical characters in recent history, our focus should be on aging historical figures still alive and as well as those unsigned underappreciated historic persons from all walks of life from our recent past. Helen Keller, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela represent powerful names that, when aligned with appropriate cause marketing campaigns and Social Responsible Businesses, they could easily exceed licensing revenue generated from the current top 13 dead celebrities. If Tiger Woods can generate $100 million a year, most of which is through product endorsements, imagine Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King might do, aligned with the right endeavors. These names hold amazing promises that, unlike celebrity athletes whose heroics last a lifetime, grow more profound with time.
My own home town of Houston has an exceptional base of local talent at NASA, along with many Apollo program heroes still living nearby. Pioneer heart doctors Denton Cooley (who is still alive at 88) and Michael DeBakey, aligned with brand symbols for cause related marketing for heart disease, become a powerful combination for the ages.
As personal identity is directly linked to displaying the significant markers of consumption, consuming Denton Cooley may in effect assist in becoming Denton Cooley; which is to say, it increases the likelihood that a young adult might have a career in the medical field.
Contrast this formula to consuming the branded products of Paris Hilton or even Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. There are a very limited numbers of persons that have the ability and opportunity to play professional sports, while there are many unfilled medical, engineering and technical jobs. And there are few of us lucky enough to come from a wealthy and famous family with a name synomous with travel and leisure.
So culture is another instance where business operating on pure profit motive alone fail us. Our current product merchandising and licensing schemes exploits what is an already unbalanced system. It is difficult to rationalize the ordinate pay of celebrities with their social contribution. Astronauts, for instance, risk their lives for the sake of humanity but only receive government grade, similar to median income for an office administrator or salesman. Celebrities should be produced from the heroic acts of real people and from a greater range of living roles.
Licensing Dead Celebrities
The top 13 dead celebrities generated $242 million in 2007. This is up from $149 million in 2000. Not only are dead celebrities a source of revenue, but so are dead humanitarians, literary icons, and innovators or inventors. Two firms dominate this space, CMG Worldwide and the Richman Agency (now a part of Corbis). These two firms hold ownership or representation rights for many of the legendary names in recent history.
CMG Worldwide has a roster that is impressive and diverse: Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, General George Patton, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Mark Twain, Jesse Owens, Babe Ruth, to name a few. The Richman Agency, meanwhile, boasts a cast that includes notables such as W.C. Fields, Steve McQueen, Sigmund Freud, Einstein, and the Wright Brothers.
CMG and Corbis receive 20 percent of the profits from any endorsement, while the celebrity's estate gets the rest. That's more than double the profit margin for creative agencies managing endorsements or appearances of living celebrities, a competitive business that Corbis has stated they have no interest in pursuing.
I believe the business of licensing the images and brands of dead celebrities for social causes would be best run by a Philanthropic Business (a recent term used by Dan Jacobs of Everywun). The World Social Brand Market proposal is for a business platform to provide an alternative for wealthy, socially conscious celebrities to choose as an alternative to CMG Worldwide and Corbis.
In the context of philanthropy and good works, The World Social Brand Market better answers the question with regard to how to handle their images and brands after their death. Additionally, the estates and foundations of great historical persons deserve other options, particularly in view of harmonizing the life work of such notable persons with product marketing.
Related Links by Author
Comments
Write New Comment ▼
Write New Comment
Sorry! This knol's owner(s) have blocked you from editing, making suggestions, or commenting here.