Getting your product used by a famous figure can help to raise your brand profile and boost your bottom line. But how do you go about it? Some celebrities will endorse products for a fee, but that can be a costly way to promote your wares.
However there are entrepreneurs who’ve managed to get their goods in the hands of a celebrity, with media coverage of them using it, enhancing their brand and business sales without any cost to them.
Brad Hunter is the creator of iWALK2.0, a hands-free crutch that is used instead of conventional crutches, and CEO of the company. Among the A-listers who have used it are world championship surfer Kelly Slater, NFL players Romeo Pullum, Tanner Pearson and Marcus Mariota, and actor Harrison Ford.
“We sought out those celebrities and pro athletes who we felt could benefit from our product, and offered it to them,” says Hunter. “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
The business benefits, he says, are both tangible and intangible. Following an injury sustained while filming Star Wars Episode 7, Harrison Ford used the iWALK2.0 six months after it was launched and the company saw an immediate sales increase of over 40%.
There can be pitfalls. Making contact with VIPs can be very difficult, and there is no real benefit in having them use your product unless the public finds out about it.
As Hunter points out, the value lies, not in product endorsement – Ford has a career long policy of not endorsing products – but in media exposure. “It only took one or two paparazzi feeding frenzies for our product to be in tabloids around the world,” he says.
“If your product is of significant benefit to the celebrity, they will use it, and if you’re lucky, they will be captured by the media,” he adds. “The short term benefits are increased sales. The long term benefits are brand recognition and awareness that the product exists.”
Jane Taylor, creative director at millinery business Jane Taylor London, counts members of the British Royal Family among her clientele, including the Duchess of Cambridge, Zara Tindall, The Countess of Wessex and Princess Eugenie.
She started the business in her home town of Henley, initially selling locally, before moving to London and in 2014 launching her boutique and studio on the Kings Road.
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