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Check out this article on celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and his relationship with Sainsburys and its marketers. What it describes is a careful dance between all the parties, the need to maintain distance and authenticity in this new breed of celebrity endorser, who can has been able to step beyond transient cool-ness to become a "blend of social activism, entertainment and advertising so potent that
he has become one of the most popular people in Britain – the number
one hero of its middle classes."

The piece says that brands "will need to produce communications of various kinds that are so entertaining or so helpful that consumers will seek them out." Almost accidentally, Jamie Oliver has become the first real embodiment of this new, very lucrative, ideal.

After celebrating the continuing success of Jamie Oliver’s brand-waltz with the supermarket, Gary Silverman leaves marketers with a disturbing question to wrestle with:

Right now, there is only one Jamie Oliver. The question for the
marketing services industry is whether it will be possible to create
some more.

And therein, as they say, lies the rub. You can’t "create" authenticity. You have to find it, and just like the tribe of cool-hunters sent out by youth brands to find the next big things before they happen, marketers will have to become real-hunters, seeking out the authenticity that people will respond to.

And finding it will only be half the challenge. The lesson that Sainsburys and BBDO have learnt is that once you have "real" – you can’t mess with it. Jamie Oliver has basically become the voice of Sainsburys’ brand, or at least of its desire for real-ness; a voice people will listen in a way they won’t when it talks marketing or throws "message" at them and demands attention.

technorati tags: jamie_oliver, celebrity, brand, advertising, endorsement