What Makes a Celebrity Brand Successful?

In recent years, Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney have made more money selling their liquor brands, Aviation American Gin and Casamigos Tequila, than they have from their movie deals.

Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, retired from sports, now generate significant revenues through the sale of their clothing and skin care lines, S by Serena and Supergoop. Rihanna and Dr. Dre make millions selling their own brands of cosmetics, lingerie and headphones, respectively.

Celebrity endorsements of existing brands have been part of marketing strategy for decades. But in a world where celebrities have built huge followings on social media and have become effective influencers, many stars are making a shift: instead of promoting or serving as influencers for other companies' products, they are launching their own brands to benefit from their fame.

However, for every successful celebrity brand, many more have failed, even those of some big stars. To succeed, the founders of these brands must identify potential strategic advantages, turn them into competitive advantages and develop expertise in areas very different from those in which they gained their fame.

In this article, we present a framework for building a successful celebrity brand, derived from field research we conducted while writing case studies on Kim Kardashian's Skims line of girdles and David Chang's Momofuku Goods line of packaged foods. We also highlighted common mistakes.

The Evolution of Celebrities as Marketers

Promotional deals often require a celebrity to make promotional appearances and wear or carry the products in public, in addition to appearing in advertisements. For celebrities, promotions provide additional revenue; for brands, they offer an opportunity to increase awareness and attract buyers. The common wisdom, backed by volumes of academic research, is that brands succeed when associated with an attractive endorser who is a credible expert in a given area and appears trustworthy.

With the rise of social media, celebrities have become influencers as well as endorsers, posting promotional material on their own channels. To be attractive to brands, influencers must have a sizable and loyal audience. Traditionally, influencers with the largest audiences were celebrities in highly visible fields, such as acting, music performance and sports. More recently, social media has enabled ordinary people to become influencers by posting engaging content that goes viral. For example, MrBeast (who began amassing followers at age 13 by posting video game content) has more than 241 million subscribers on YouTube, and Khaby Lame (a Senegalese-born Italian whose videos make fun of life hacks) has more than 161 million followers on TikTok.

Advertisers have always tried to select endorsers and influencers that feel right for the brand. These people must appear natural and credible when recommending the product. If the collaboration seems inauthentic, consumers will not be persuaded to buy.

Influencer marketing has advantages for brands: as more people try to avoid intrusive advertising, those who browse social media are increasingly willing to accept marketing messages from influencers they admire and trust. Consumers who make purchases as a result may be more engaged with the brand because it signals their fanaticism and perceived parasocial relationship with the celebrity.

Celebrities moving from simple promotional deals to influencer deals must be able to attract millions of followers, create engaging content, mix daily (unpaid) posts with promotional messages, and recommend the brand in ways that feel unscripted and authentic. Because this work involves higher-order skills and sustained daily effort, brands compensate celebrity influencers generously.

Why have celebrities now begun to imagine, launch, manage and promote their own brands? First, the ubiquity of influencers on social media has led consumers to look for authenticity in advertising, and they perceive it more in a celebrity-owned brand. Second, social media (particularly with the use of video) has opened a direct line of communication between celebrities and their fans. Third, e-commerce and direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands allow for much faster new product development and distribution and, therefore, higher margins. Fourth, while existing brands can use promotions or influencers as part of a broader marketing strategy, celebrity brand owners can rely heavily on their own social networks, which significantly reduces marketing costs to gain a cost advantage over existing brands.

What Makes a Celebrity Brand Successful?

Kim Kardashian is a reality star and ubiquitous celebrity. As of the end of 2023, she had 363 million followers on Instagram, 75 million on X (formerly Twitter), 35 million on Facebook and 9 million on TikTok. She has done traditional promotions for brands like Balenciaga and OPI nail polish, and served as a paid influencer on her social media platforms, promoting Dolce & Gabbana, among others. As she began thinking about creating her own brand, she recognized a market need: traditional girdles for women (the category pioneered by Spanx) didn't work well for her body type. In 2019, Kardashian launched Skims to meet that need. She serves as the brand's creative director and aesthetic muse; a co-founder, Jens Grede, serves as CEO. They positioned Skims as a solution-oriented brand with an eye toward inclusivity of body type and skin tone. Since its founding, it has expanded into other apparel categories, including underwear, loungewear, sleepwear and activewear. In 2023, Skims was valued at $4 billion, with the majority of its products sold DTC through the company's website.

Collaboration: Grupo Auge | HBR.