Celebrity Endorsements: How Adly Helps Even Small Businesses Build Brand Connection With Celebrity Power

By Jonathan Keane

It’s important for your customers to be able to connect with your service or product, almost on a personal level. We tend to look for something to relate to in everything, something that speaks to us. In the areas of marketing, this cannot be understated. You are looking for a connection and in the age of instant communications, where some are often ephemeral, crafting a connection that you can harvest and make last for years to come is vital to your business surviving in the high speed digital age. So where do celebrities come into this?

Celebrities, regardless of their background, whether it’s an actor, musician, athlete or someone who’s famous just for being famous, brings a certain eminence with them and most importantly, a fan base.

Charities, for example, have leveraged this for many, many years with countless organizations pairing with a celebrity, or a slew of celebrities, to be the face of their cause and spread the word. It’s a model that isn’t new by any means but in the age of social media, and specifically Twitter, companies, big and small, are finding new ways to engage with consumers and celebrity endorsements are just one way of doing that.

Adly is an online marketing start-up that was founded in 2009, but in May of 2012, they grabbed a few headlines when they announced that former News Corp. executive and Photobucket general manager Walter Delph had been named the new CEO of the company.

“With the advent of social media consumers are able to connect with celebrities that they would not have otherwise had access to,” Walter explains on the very basic idea that inspired the beginning of Adly four years ago.

The small company, with a team of four, is a marketing firm that aims to “spark authentic conversations between celebrities and their fans”, all on the topic of your brand. By analyzing the conversations, Adly optimizes the results for more efficient targeting of your product/service to the right people in the right places. These two services of celebrity contacts and analytics form the foundation for Adly and it has been built from there.

“The power of celebrity has long been acknowledged as one of the most powerful ways to influence and connect with consumers. A brand’s ability to influence consumers via celebrity is considered one of the most effective ways to raise affinity and ultimately to drive purchase. Now with the power of data we can provide ROI metrics to brands,” says Walter on the power Adly and the information they can provide.

“For brands, the potential for celebrity influence is greater than ever, given how far a message can go thanks to social media and its ability to reach wide audiences,” he explains. “It’s apparent that a vast majority of consumers are using social media platforms to engage with celebrities and key influencers and this creates a space where brands can join in and benefit from the influence of a celebrity. Celebrities have the same reach as most in social television shows. The difference is that there is a two-way interaction between the consumer and the influencer.”

Read the rest of the article in SmallBizTechnology

SXSW: Adly contest for start-ups gives winner a celebrity tweet

BY ANDREA CHANG

AUSTIN, Texas — Want a major celebrity to endorse your start-up company on Twitter?

Westwood-based Adly, a marketing platform that connects brands with celebrities on social media, is holding a contest during South by Southwest for start-ups that want a little boost from a big name.

Entrants just need to submit a pitch of 140 characters or fewer to Adly’s Twitter handle with the format: “Hey @Adly ____________________ #SXSW #pitchadly.”

At a “Sunday Funday” event featuring L.A. tech companies, Adly Chief Executive Walter Delph said that as SXSW’s Interactive festival grows each year, start-ups can struggle to get noticed.

“Now you have multi-billion companies like Samsung who are here, so it’s harder for smaller companies to bubble to the top,” Delph said from Austin’s Frank restaurant, where a capacity crowd snacked on currywurst and downed cocktails adorned with bacon strips. “We want to help in an authentic way.”

Read the rest of the artice at LA Times