Octagon First Call

Fitness guru Denise Austin is the new face for Listerine’s Live Right, Sleep Tight sweepstakes. As part of the partnership, Austin will do do publicity outreach for Listerine as well as star in several webisodes online. Austin is what we consider an “influencer with assets”.

She isn’t the typical celebrity (i.e., athlete, musician, actress, etc.) but she has a strong female 25-54 following and she also has a website full of email addresses and fan loyalty. One can expect more of these deals in the future. Celebrities, or excuse me, influencers that bring assets to the table in addition to their name and likeness.Austin will also send some time in Q4 at promotional/retail appearances for the brand.

Surf their site and check out the videos (Denise will add a new one each week) and submit one of your own.

http://www.listerine.com/routines-whole-body.jsp

We daily preach to our corporate clients to use Influencers, not just Celebrities, in their marketing campaigns. While Celebrities are immediately noticed, some aren’t recognized as a brand fit and others can’t communicate the brand message. This morning, USA Today uses a full page to list their top 25 influencers over the past 25 years. In our opinion, the group is broken into three categories: politicians who are unable to be pitchmen during their active professional careers, entrepreneurs who are pitchmen for their own companies (i.e., Howard Schultz, Bill Gates, etc.) and finally, professional influencers. These are the celebrities who have used their popularity to influence others outside of their careers (i.e. Lance Armstrong, Russell Simmons, Homer Simpson, etc.). And the one person who we feel has the ability to transcend her global success into something even bigger (if that’s possible) - J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter. Time will tell what other industries and categories she dabbles in.