Advertising with testimonials is not popular with all “If you can’t think of anything else, use a celebrity or try sex sells” are quite common criticisms of the concept that advertising has been using since time immemorial: A well-known celebrity recommends a product and because of his or her credibility and fame, the consumer is supposed to do the same. Despite all the prophecies of doom: if it is done well, it works very well. The rise of influencers among young target groups in particular shows that the concept works even when it is clear that the brand recommendation has been bought.

Here are a few – very brief – rules on how it works. This applies to both testimonials and influencers.

1. Celebrity Factor

Testimonial is the nice advertising term, but it is a celebrity, a hero, a star for the respective target group. That is what’s important. It’s not about some notoriety, it’s about the fact that a person, because of their life story, provides an identification figure for the consumer, who must be a real fan. Of course, this celebrity factor is very much dependent on the target group: 15 – 20-year-olds trust influencers in their purchasing decisions that 30-year-olds know absolutely nothing about. It is also important to understand that it is not “cheaper” to take the N° 3 or 5, only the real role model will bring about change.

2. Image Fit

A testimonial usually only has a perceived competence for a limited area and their image values are what make them valuable to the brand. Thomas Gottschalk stands for a family-friendly sense of humour and can thus recommend gummy bears wonderfully, but he would certainly be far less suitable as a testimonial for an insurance company. Influencers build up their competence in a very targeted way, match the products to their own staging, but there are also testimonials whose competence is not clear. That has to be tested in the target group. There are surprises.

3. Exclusivity

Often, only the size of the jersey is the limitting factor for brands that an athlete represents. You can’t hold that against them, but it’s probably not as ideal for the brands being advertised. Good testimonials are expensive, exclusivity then almost unaffordable, and yet it is important to only let testimonials appear who definitely have no second client in the same product family. However, it is based on the human attention economy that the brand that has the better fit of its image to the testimonial or influencer used will ultimately win, since the brain quickly forgets or does not even take in incongruous variants. Therefore, exclusivity is important, but the image fit is even more important.

4. Story Telling

A celebrity holding some product up to the camera and says that it’s really great is sad. Since this was handled very well in a film in “Lost in Translation”, this sadness and senselessness is also in the general memory because this film – like every good film – does what advertising also has to do with testimonials: Tell a story. The brand and the celebrity have to be linked with a story in such a way that the two images reinforce each other and the hero is the brand. The sentence was written quickly, to implement this is damn hard work and for this, advertising agencies are worth any money.

5. Duration

If your budget is only enough for a few spots in the summer, then leave a celebrity alone, the money will fizzle out into nowhere. Even if the fit to the brand is perfect and the story is memorable, the bond between testimonial and product has to be maintained over a certain period of time so that the image transfer is sustainable.

6. Scientific Support

This sounds complicated now, but the message is simple: all of the above criteria can be measured with state-of-the-art methods and they should be, because these costs are the lowest in the project “Advertising with Testimonials and Influencers”.

We start a project based on a multi-client study and test testimonials, influencers, their image and awareness in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Before we start, we are also happy to record your testimonial or brand.

02/03/2023

Copyright: Interconnection, Publication free of charge for coverage regarding the study and InterConnection Consulting.