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Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle entered the NFL on a $27.1 million rookie deal in 2021, nearly $18 million of which went toward his signing bonus.
He’s also 24, likes playing mini golf with his friends and eating a bunch of fries when the training schedule allows.
In a marketing landscape where data and analytics firm EDO says ads with celebrities perform 25% better than those without one, Waddle’s job tends to garner most of the attention. But while Omnicom agency The Marketing Arm notes that 64% of people polled in October believe consumers are more likely to buy a product when it is endorsed by a celebrity—a figure that rises to 70% among Gen Z—brands want their celebrity spokespeople to resonate with their regulars.
Earlier this year, when Dine Brands’ casual dining chain Applebee’s wanted to tout an all-you-can-eat wings, riblets and shrimp promotion, it approached digital media company Team Whistle for a solution. Team Whistle felt the promotion was a good fit for its Cheat Day series—which follows athletes while they take a break from training—and paired Applebee’s with Waddle after a day of mini golf with his friend and trainer.
The result was an episode that felt more like a mini documentary than an ad. As Applebee’s CMO Joel Yashinsky said, it made a well-compensated professional athlete feel more relatable to his customers, “most of them not in the NFL.”
“Jaylen was comfortable and taken care of, which is how we want all our guests to feel,” Yashinsky said. “Viewers really got a glimpse into a day in the life of Jaylen, and his ‘cheat’ day didn’t end up looking that different from our cheat days.”
According to Wyzowl Research’s Video Marketing Trends report, more than 90% of consumers want to see more digital video from brands. The amount of online video watched each week has surged from 10.5 hours in 2018 to 19 hours last year, with 70% of marketers who don’t currently use video planning to do so in 2023.
In that crowded marketplace, where 66% of consumers told Sprout Social they pay the most attention to short-form video like those produced by Team Whistle, simply stamping a celebrity or athlete onto a brand’s narrative isn’t nearly as effective as incorporating them into the story they’re telling the customer.