Is a Celebrity Ad a Good Ad?

I remember the bouncing QR Code ad, the Larry David through “history” ad, and the Sopranos kids ad - and that’s pretty much it off the top. But these spots cost millions (an average of $6 million to be exact), and adding a celebrity appearance in your ad could tack on an additional $500,000 to $2 million. Are these companies seeing upwards of $8 million in ROI?

“Kind of”
Sorry, but that’s the answer. Let’s look at results for an ad with and without celebrities.

Bouncing QR code advertiser Coinbase averages around $400 per year in gross profit per user. That means they needed to convert at least 15,000 users from the ad to break even, plus another 30,000 if you throw in the “free” $15 in Bitcoin they give to new users. So if you estimate that they needed 45,000 new users it gives us a good number to start with. They received 20 million visitors in 1 minute from their ad. If they converted even 10% of that they had massive success. Not to much all the retargeting data they have from anyone who went to the site but didn’t register.

But what about celebrity “driven” ads? It’s not like anyone immediately bought a Chevy during the Sopranos ad for the automaker. But did it raise awareness for their all electric vehicle? Did it add prestige to their brand? Did it insert them into the buying process for consumers? Absolutely, but the scale is hard (if not impossible) to measure. Was it worth $8-10 million? They will track sales, data, and focus groups - but they’ll never be able to fully quantify it. However, for their brand to be at the forefront they took the risk.

So, if your business was given the money to buy a Super Bowl ad - what direction would you take with it? Funny? Unique? Celebrity-driven? Maybe your own Clydesdale? We’d love to hear your ideas!