January 25, 2009

Can Celebrity endorsements work in HR?????

Employer branding is on a big swing recently. More specifically, IT and BPO companies are vigorously marketing themselves.

This sort of marketing is probably the differentiating factor in the ever growing competition of attracting talent.

Is it possible to leverage Celebrity Appeal in the above context?????

Imagine Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone endorsing an employer brand. Well!!!! it's possible but what kind of effect will it have on the target audience.

Would it propel them to a join a company because Shahrukh or Deepika is shown working there???

I guess, not really.

It's fine to gulp down a soft drink or buy a watch which Shahrukh endorses. Somehow, it makes us feel a little more like Shahrukh and it's certainly nice to be Shahrukh.

But in case of being an internal customer, once you place your bottoms in the cubicle and get into the rigmarole of daily work; you dont really feel like the 'Shahrukh Khan' whom you would have watched in a two minute happy go lucky TV ad of your company.

The dynamics of Celebrity endorsements are different when targeted to external customer and internal customer.

However, a 'genuinely' good employer featuring a celebrity with a simmilar brand identity in it's TV ad might work wonders but a celebrity alone can not help a pretentious employer.

The customer motives behind gulping a soft drink and building a career are very different............



1 comment:

Unknown said...

An interesting thought.A well-performing employee is the ideal brand ambassador for any firm.But mostly only the top brass are known to the public..
Some of Infosys's prints ads feature employees, though!