Celebrity Marketing: The Attention vs. Brand Equity Tradeoff

Everyone's arguing about why Novig let Sydney Sweeney do that ad.

Nobody's asking WHY she wanted to.

We all know the ad I'm talking about...
(And if you don't, well, the image pretty much sums it up 😂)

Turns out, this started with Sweeney, not the brand.

Sweeney approached Novig first, wanting an equity stake.

She's now a strategic partner and has equity in the business.
So for her, this was always more than being a face on a random campaign.

According to the Wall Street Journal, she shaped a big part of the creative and the messaging herself.

From my understanding, this was her call, made on something she has equity in.

That changes the question everyone's been asking.

This isn't controversial talent hired to generate buzz for a brand.
It's an owner who decided her own reputation was the fastest way to get her own investment noticed.

Now, the ad drew serious backlash.
Mainly from female athletes who felt it sexualized women's sport instead of celebrating it.

That reaction deserves to be taken seriously on its own terms.

But here's where the data gets interesting...

Social listening data reported by Business Insider found Novig's brand mentions jumped roughly 9x after launch.

96% of the conversation was about Sweeney.
Not the product.

Sports betting skews heavily male.
Novig knows exactly who signs up for a platform like theirs.

(Men who want to 'gamble', who also stereotypically enjoy sexualized images of women)

A campaign built to grab that audience's attention was never going to land the same way with everyone.

That's simply a read on who this was built to reach,
and who it was always going to cost them.

Attention and brand equity aren't the same thing.

Novig got the exposure.

Whether that turns into people trusting the product enough to use it is a separate question.

And it's one that depends entirely on whether they needed broad trust or just their core audience's attention.

If you're an investor who also happens to be your own best distribution channel, that's a genuine advantage.

But the deal only works if you've planned for exactly who you're going to alienate to get there.

♻️ Repost if this changed how you're reading that ad.
And follow me, Jacob Rokeach, for more on the difference between attention and trust.