Ryan Abushinov mentions in his blog that many companies have successful celebrity endorsements but I find it requires a lot of money, time, and marketing to enhance the product’s image for consumers to relate the brand to the celebrity.

Instead of celebrities, companies should use real life people who have been changed by their product positively to be their product’s representative so consumers can think “maybe I can be more like that person” or “maybe if I bought that product I would have the same results”.

Subway is the best example of a company who had a real life person fall into their lap and increase sales without the company having to do anything but promote him.

Blurb about him:
Jared Fogle was once “425 pounds [until he voluntarily] lost 245 pounds” (Leung 2007) eating only Subway sandwiches. Subway soon caught wind of what he had done, though didn’t think very much of it until the local branch (who had watched him lose all his weight) promoted his image and had a large increase in sales. Subway took him on immediately after and put him into national commercials which instantly increased sales by 20%. Jared Fogle became well known as the “Subway Guy,” though every time he disappeared from commercials, rumors would spread that he gained his weight back (even though he’d come back each and every time, showing that he didn’t.)

Jared Fogle doesn’t look good as Tiger Woods, or most celebrities out there, nor is he as skinny or famous, but he reaches out to the consumers where the celebrities cannot.  He is real, and if he was able to lose weight eating fast food, he puts into our mind “we can do it too.” Consumers don’t feel for Tiger Woods, or necessarily care that he wears the Nike brand, other than for the “cool aspect”, but they feel for Jared.  They wonder why he’s not in commercials when he’s not, or wonder if he was able to maintain his weight.  He helps differentiate the Subway product brand more than Tiger Woods does for Nike, mainly because Subway changed his life, and consumers can remember something like that more then what Tiger Woods was wearing to his golf tournament.

This is why I believe a real life person who has a story behind a product can differentiate a brand much more than a celebrity endorsement, and why I believe Jared Fogle was Subway’s marketing dream come true.

Links:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/02/48hours/main603484.shtml
http://www.toptodaynews.com/jared-the-subway-guy-death-hoax/
http://www.nndb.com/people/955/000044823/