Is Ryan Reynolds the new George Clooney?
By Lisa Valade-DeMelo, Vice President, Research, Financial Services | January 20, 2021
When Ryan Reynolds bought into Aviation Gin in 2018 it made some people wonder if he was headed in the same direction George Clooney took with his Casamigos Tequila brand: turn a hobby into a business worth something to a company like Diageo.
Despite early speculation and (full disclosure) with absolutely no knowledge of the intricacies of Aviation Gin’s brand strategy, Reynolds seems to be taking things slightly off-piste and in the past few years his on-point Aviation Gin spots have caused a stir in the advertising industry. I live in that bubble too and love the ads, but it made me wonder if anyone else had even noticed, whether Reynolds had positively impacted his liquor brand in the relatively short time since buying into it, and what both Reynolds and Aviation Gin might look like post-COVID-19.
First things first: are you #teamgin or #teamtequila?
Academic research says that some of your decision will be based on whether or not you like the celebrity endorsing the product; that the attractiveness and credibility of the person selling it will increase the brand’s equity and, as a result, your interest in buying it will increase. This is especially true when we’re talking about hedonic products (those you buy purely for pleasure, fun or enjoyment).
So how does a celebrity contribute to a brand’s overall equity? The short answer is they increase something called the “self-brand connection”. In other words, you like the celebrity, you like the brand.
And that connection is even stronger if the celebrity and brand really “get” each other. It’s why brands spend so much time and money picking a celebrity who perfectly encapsulates what they’re trying to be (and vice versa) in the hope that they can borrow some fame from each other. And, as long as the celebrity doesn’t eclipse the product by sucking all the air out of the room or by stepping too far away from their public persona, everybody wins.
But what happens when the celebrity OWNS the brand?
If we pull brand equity apart a little bit, it’s well understood to be made up of 4 different components:
brand awareness — does anyone know the brand?
perceived quality — based on previous experience or expectations
brand loyalty — built up over time across all the brand’s products
brand associations — whatever comes into a person’s mind when they think about the brand
Celebrities can help a brand with all these components, but they tend to have the strongest and most immediate influence on brand associations. And they’re more successful at shifting impressions of the brand if they’re 1. attractive or likeable, and 2. trustworthy or credible (are perceived to have some discernible expertise in the product).
Owning the brand should give the celebrity a leg-up selling it as ownership automatically imparts a certain amount of credibility. It should make the brand and celeb synonymous with one another without the years of consistent branding work put in by George Clooney and Nespresso, for example. All they should have to do is increase awareness of the partnership and sales should, in theory, follow.
The real question is whether Ryan Reynolds has been able to accomplish any of that in his short time with Aviation Gin.
Getting psychological about it
In order to measure brand connection and determine what Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney are most associated with, Maru ran 1,500 Americans and 1,500 Canadians through an Implicit Association Test (IAT).
In this kind of test, respondents are presented with a series of words or images and asked to sort them as quickly and accurately as possible into one of two buckets — in this instance the buckets were ‘Ryan Reynolds’ and ‘George Clooney’. The idea is that the speed with which items are sorted into one bucket or the other speaks to the strength of the connection between that item and the bucket. Faster = a strong, instinctual connection. Slower = a weak, I-have-to-really-think-about-it connection.
What we found is that there are items here that are very clearly more ‘Ryan’ and those that are more ‘George’. The worrying bit is in the hotly-contested middle ground of sunglasses, tequila, and gin. What this is showing us is that, while Deadpool is clearly ‘Ryan’ and Ocean’s 11 is clearly ‘George’, people are evenly split about which one of them is gin and which one of them is tequila. Not great news with respect to being associated with your product.
The bigger problem is when we look at how quickly people sorted gin into the ‘Ryan’ and ‘George’ buckets — people didn’t spend much time thinking about where to put gin and were actually more likely to sort it into the George bucket quickly or instinctively.
Is Ryan Reynolds a credible purveyor of gin?
Once we told our respondents that Ryan Reynolds owned a gin company, we wondered if people believed that he was a credible and trustworthy spokesperson for that type of product. Americans are more likely than Canadians to believe that Reynolds enjoys his gin — 42% is a pretty strong number when it comes to a sense of credibility and expertise about a product not everyone knew he owned. What they’re less sure about, however, is whether he really embodies gin.
So, what does Ryan Reynolds have going for him?
When asked what first comes to mind when they hear the name Ryan Reynolds, most mention the fact that he’s an actor. But if attractiveness is key to positive celebrity associations and, ultimately, purchase intentions, then his looks need to be mentioned too. For Reynolds, his personality is mentioned just as often as his looks, and more than his individual movie titles. And, people really like him and feel he is authentic.
But “liking” a celebrity is a complex thing in and of itself, and the public image or character stars build around themselves is typically a mash-up of their movie roles and the audience’s expectations/hopes/dreams.
Stars come across as “authentic” when they behave in a way that is consistent with the image they’ve created; they come off as completely out-of-touch when that image clashes with them as actual human beings. No one wants stars to relate to them on normal human grounds. In fact, believing that relatability = authenticity is a fallacy many stars are buying into as they show us around their mansions in lock-down or complain about the rigors of parenthood. Ellen stopped being “Ellen” for a moment and her reputation has been damaged as a result.
What Reynolds is really good at is being “Ryan Reynolds” all the time and in every situation. He can place his character in different situations from phoning Mint Mobile users, to tweeting about his wife, to donating time and money to children’s hospitals, to making fun gin ads, all while maintaining the persona we know and love.
What he hasn’t been able to do just yet, however, is capitalize on the “self-brand connection” so vital to increasing brand equity.
The Last Word
In the end, even if a celebrity owns a brand, becoming naturally associated with it takes time and consistent effort and, in the end, really only works if the ‘fit’ between them feels right to consumers.
If it does, the brand is well on its way to achieving the coveted “endorser-product congruence phenomenon” — when all the good feelings about a celebrity and brand shift effortlessly between them, consumers feel a connection, and they head out to buy.
For Americans and Canadians Ryan Reynolds is intimately connected with his profession and the public character they know and love. He doesn’t yet ‘own’ his gin, though… at least not in a ‘hearts & minds’, subconscious way.
And for celebrities and brands alike, winning over hearts & minds is key to customer loyalty and long-term growth. Ryan Reynolds has successfully and consistently played with his public persona — and the current lock-down is no exception. The authenticity that comes with that consistency will serve him well when this is all over and I can’t wait to see what his next step will be!
As to the question of whether Ryan Reynolds is the new George Clooney, it’s not even close but if I told you I was #teamgin, how many people would know who I’d rather have a drink with?