Why Celebs are Gods to tech marketing

Oprah is top of the iTunes charts for podcasts in the US due to an ongoing discussion series with writer Eckhart Tolle. But not only that. Oprah also conducts a 10 week video series using a Microsoft Silverlight player and Skype conversations. ReadWriteWeb has the story.

Why is this important? Because Oprah is hugely popular with millions of women worldwide, and in that capacity her use of these technological tools drives adoption in a much more efficient manner than any advertising campaign could ever do.

What is the lesson? The lesson is to get spokespeople on board for your products. Spokespeople who apply the use of your products to their everyday routine in a way that in order for you as a fan to get in touch with the celeb you have to use the products too.

Applied correctly this doesn’t feel like advertising or marketing - it feels natural, and the products or services being used becomes integral parts of you everyday life with technology. Substitution as a result becomes a lot harder, and you - as a company offering a service - have a much better position in the competition.

Use the divebombing technique. Forget about expensive mass reach advertising campaigns with more or less clever messaging. Spend your ressources (perhaps only a fraction of it) on building up spokespeople, who have credibility towards your target audience and spread the message through their adoption of your services. It’s the clever thing to do.

For celebs looking for an extra source of income this may also be a viable approach going forward. If you as the celeb are open towards fully embracing and using the product or service. Why this word of caution? Because people can smell from miles away when something is half-hearted and only being done for a paycheck.