Marketing to Celebrities

A couple of years ago, I thought it would be really cool if we could get our products into the hands of celebrities.  We had the opportunity to participate in one of those celebrity gift baskets and swag events.  I thought if only we could get it to some really popular celebrity, they would surely think our stuff was cool.  Hopefully they’ll use it and get some paparazzi pics taken with our stuff on their babies.  Then everybody will want to buy our diapers, right???  Well, not exactly.

For those who aren’t familiar with what a celebrity swag event is, it’s basically an event where a coordinator (usually someone well connected with the entertainment industry) puts together a bunch of vendors and invites celebrities to the event to get stuff from vendors for free.  It’s usually held at a nice hotel, or an exclusive venue where the crowd can be controlled.  This gives the vendors a chance to meet one-on-one with the celebrities and get their pictures taken with the celebrities holding their products.  This is very common especially around award ceremonies.  The cost to participate in these things are in the several thousands of dollars, depending on the exclusivity and the type of celebrities attending.  That is on top of all the products you will be giving away, plus travel expenses.

Celebrity gift baskets, on the other hand, can cost a lot less.  These are usually given to celebrities having babies, birthdays, winning an award, etc.  Your product is pooled in together with other products in a huge gift basket and sent to the celebrities.  You then get the honor of being able to say you gave so & so one of your products.  Then you sit and wait and hope they’ll talk about your stuff or have pictures of your stuff being used by them.  I’ve not personally participated in gift baskets, only because so many people are promoting it and saying the same things that it starts sounding like a used car salesman pitch to me.  It starts out just a few hundred dollars or even a couple thousand, then if you want to be the only product of its kind in the basket, it costs more.  If you want your products over in the front of the basket, it’s additional.  There’s no guarantee the celebrity is actually going to use them.  They may have pictures of the recipient holding the basket, but that can also be extra $$’s.  For all the exclusivity you pay for, do you realize there are probably a dozen other promoters putting together gift baskets for the same celebrity?  Surely Angelina Jolie won’t just get 1 gift basket after having twins.  Celebrities receive so many of these gift baskets that a lot of them are just donating them to charity.  There goes all your money.

I have only personally participated in one swag event, and that was enough for me to say “never again.”  First of all, I’m probably not the right type of person to be participating in these things since I do not follow the who’s who of the celebrity world since I don’t watch a lot of TV.  Ever since having kids, the only celebrities I know really well are cartoon characters.  Secondly, I’m such a dork when it comes to mingling and socializing with strangers since I never really know what to say.  I mean, what do you say to a really famous person??  “umm hi! want some diapers?”  I couldn’t even get the nerve to ask to have pictures taken since I felt like that was in some way exploiting or taking advantage of their status.  The only pictures I have were those where the celebrity themselves asked me if I wanted some pictures taken.  How pathetic is that?  Anyway, what I also realized is that most of the people attending these events are assistants, B/C-list celebrities, and a lot of “unknowns.”  I was told that the really well known celebrities and A-list types don’t attend these things because they don’t want to be seen taking stuff for free.

At the end of the event, I just felt disappointed.  While we did give away a few hundred diapers, a lot of people took them just because they were free without really understanding how they worked or what the heck they were.  Of course, we also got the all-too-famous reaction to cloth diapers “Eeewwwww, gross.”   We did meet some famous people.  Big whoopee.  After spending several thousand dollars and giving away all those minky diapers, is that it??  All those people that took the diapers, are they even really going to use it or are they going to trash it?  Why am I giving away all these diapers to people who can very well afford to buy them on their own when there are cloth diapering moms out there who can barely even afford to buy prefolds?  Why am I giving away all these diapers to people that don’t really care when there are hundreds or even thousands of moms out there that would be tickled pink to get a minky diaper for free?  Tell me again why I decided to do this?

What if I spent the same amount of money and gave away all those diapers to OUR CUSTOMERS–to the very people that it mattered to, to those that would appreciate what it is??  I’m sure marketing to celebrities may have worked for some people.  It probably pays off really well for those who have really deep pockets.  But when you’re a start-up, a $2,000 marketing budget won’t take you very far in trying to hit on the stars.  An actual celebrity endorsement costs a few hundred thousand dollars.  But that same $2,000 will definitely get you a long way when you give it to your customers.

This brings me back to one of the most basic things you have to know in business–know who you’re marketing to and who your customers are.  Who are the people that will most likely buy your products?  Celebrities are definitely not our target market, so why spend so much money trying to get to them??  I don’t know, maybe I just had to experience it for myself.  I’d like to think our customers are smart people that don’t easily get swayed by what they see on TV unless it resonates with them.  So what if Salma Hayek is working with Pampers?  Does that make our customers want to buy those diapers instead?  Heck no.  They know those things don’t work as well as cloth diapers.  And they know our $32-diapers are a bargain compared to how much disposables are going to cost in the long run.

So what did I do after learning all this?

We launched Blueberry Diapers with a Buy One Get One Free offer.  The rest is history.