Our Celebrities Are Not Business-Oriented

Kim Kardashian is one celebrity in the United States of America who is very popular for absolutely no reason. She rose to fame when a sex tape, featuring her and her then boyfriend Ray J., surfaced. Since then, the curvy celebrity has become a brand.

Even though her father, the late Robert Kardashian was the lawyer of O.J. Simpson, that wasn’t enough to make her what she is now. Though some might refer to her as a “television personality” or “socialite,” Kim Kardashian is an archetypical personal brand.

From her start in a reality television series, ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’, to subsequent guest appearances on television shows and in movies, her efforts both on and offline have somehow made many people believe that she is not only valuable, but deserving of her fame.

Aside an empire she has with her mother Kris Jenner and sisters Kourtney and Khloe, Kim has her own businesses made up of clothing and jewelry lines and perfumes. Whatever your opinion is of her, her story is a lesson about the power of marketing yourself.

The 30-year-old got married to basketball player Kris Humphries last Saturday, and even though the wedding was one lavish affair, the couple is expected to rake in some profits. Out of the about $18 million the couple will make, taxes would definitely be deducted from it and go into US government’s kitty and subsequently boost the economy.

Considering the fact that Kardashian is a brand, a lot of companies and magazines decided to cash in on her engagement and wedding events.

Kim’s Vera Wang wedding dress (plus two other Wang dresses), the Lehr & Black invitations, the Hansen’s Bakery wedding cake, Perrier Jouet champagne, and hair and makeup services were all bartered.

The estimate on these items alone nears $650,000. The couple also received a hefty discount on Kim’s $2 million engagement ring, as well as $1 million wedding bands from Kardashian friend Lorraine Schwartz.

All the above-named companies know how much publicity and patronage they would be getting from and after the events.

Kim & kris Here in Ghana, we have our celebrities ranging from musicians to actresses. The Yvonne Okoro, Yvonne Nelsons, Nadia Buari, Beccas, Mzbels, John Dumelos are all stars in their own rights who have thriving careers, yet they have not been able to establish themselves as brands that big time companies would like to associate with. Jackie Appiah is however one actress who has seen a bit of success when it comes to endorsement deals: She had a deal with IT institute IPMC and was the face of the UB until she was replaced with Miss Ghana 2010 Stephanie Karikari. She is also an ambassador for communication giants Glo.

But is she a strong brand that magazines and TV stations would want to pay her huge sums of money for her birthday, engagement, and wedding pictures or footages? No.

As to whether she is making big bucks from her deals, no one can really tell.

Yvonne Nelson recently launched her hairline and boutique. It is a good start but she has to work on making herself a very strong and marketable brand which would help her clinch a multi-million deal.

Our stars are not very transparent and forthcoming when it comes to giving out information on what they make from these deals. Some of them are not even media-friendly.

The likes of Kim Kardashian, who are business savvy, love the attention from the media. They capitalize on every chance they get as regards publicity; they always want to be in the news.

Some of the ‘celebrities’ in Ghana are rather curt when it comes to the media. For one reason or the other, everything is “personal” to them. What they don’t know is that, allowing their fans to know more about them is all part of marketing themselves.

When she was deciding on a colour for her Kim Kardashian perfume bottle, Kim asked her followers on Twitter whether they preferred a hot pink or a light pink. (It was light pink, by far.)

“Twitter is the most amazing focus group out there,” she said.

This shows how she tries to involve her fans in what she does, thus marketing herself more.

Actress Juliet Ibrahim was earlier in the year in the news for allegedly attacking a journalist from ‘The Spectator’ over her photos and wedding announcement. The fracas was about her photos and wedding announcement being placed on an inside page instead of being on the front page.

In an interview on ‘The One Show’ on Viasat 1, Ibrahim stated that she had a problem with the newspaper because she paid for her pictures and wedding announcement to be published on the front page. This is not supposed to be so. If she had built herself well as a brand, the paper would probably have paid her for her photos and wedding announcement, not the other way round.

The paper would have made a lot of proceeds from the photos if Juliet was a strong brand and that would, in turn, have helped the country’s economy.

The amount People Magazine has paid Kardashian and Humphries, $1.5m, may sound ridiculous but it knows what it stands to gain when the pictures hit the newsstands. The number of people yearning to see the wedding pictures will rush to get their copies and that will reflect in the magazine’s coffers, and subsequently, more taxes for the US.

E! Online is reportedly paying between $11m and $13m for the exclusive video footage of the wedding.

According to media reports in US, one branding expert stated that “You would have had to be living in a cave in Nepal to have not been exposed in one way or another to the celebrity ilk of Kim Kardashian”, adding that consumers associated Kardashian with entrepreneurship.

This is how strong the reality TV star has built herself into, and why won’t big companies want to associate themselves with her? They know what they stand to gain.

We have a lot of stars in Ghana who can market themselves better to help boost our economy by associating with worldwide companies, provided that they establish themselves as strong brands.

The Julia Roberts, Beyonces and Leonardo DiCaprios are making a lot of money and helping businesses they are associated with, with their strong images. Through that they help with the growth of their economy.