Celebrities Are Just Like You and Me, Only They Get to Stay Free at the Mandarin OrientalThere are two kinds of celebrities in the world; those that are in the Mandarin Oriental ad campaign running right now and those whose agents are trying to get them in.
It’s an image ad campaign for the 17 hotels that are part of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. In it celebrities including I.M. Pei, Zubin Mehta, Helen Mirren, Elle McPherson, and Dame Edna-Barry Humphries are photographed in settings of their choice and they name their favorite Mandarin property. Dame Edna-Barry Humphries get to name two!
Every celebrity appearance carries with it a $10,000 donation to the charity of the celebrity’s choosing. Neeson’s charity is UNICEF and his short profile on the Mandarin website includes a UNICEF logo and link. Most of the other charities are smaller and less prominent than UNICEF.
It’s an image ad campaign for the 17 hotels that are part of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. In it celebrities including I.M. Pei, Zubin Mehta, Helen Mirren, Elle McPherson, and Dame Edna-Barry Humphries are photographed in settings of their choice and they name their favorite Mandarin property. Dame Edna-Barry Humphries get to name two!
Every celebrity appearance carries with it a $10,000 donation to the charity of the celebrity’s choosing. Neeson’s charity is UNICEF and his short profile on the Mandarin website includes a UNICEF logo and link. Most of the other charities are smaller and less prominent than UNICEF.
It goes almost without saying that the donation amount is too small to be meaningful. I don’t know how the deal is structured but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the celebrities wave all or part their cash fee in lieu of the charitable donation and then take the rest in hotel stays.
That’s what makes it so appealing to celebrities… they get to stay in lavish Mandarin hotels for the price of the time it took to do the photo shoot. Better still for the celebrities, the ads feature them, not the hotels. In the process they look like good citizens. If you listen closely you can almost hear agents the world over calling the Mandarin’s ad agency.
By contrast, how interesting would it be if the Mandarin Oriental Group agreed to match what the celebrity donates to his or her preferred charity up to a certain amount? Interesting and unlikely. Most charitable donations from celebrities come in the form of in-kind gifts…read ‘time.’
There’s other things to like in this campaign. The celebrity list is an accomplished and eclectic group, with an especially strong showing of Asians, which makes sense since better that half of the Mandarin’s hotels are in Asia.
However, I think the creative is spare and subtle to the point almost of obfuscation, especially when it comes to the charities. “Liam Neeson for UNICEF” makes sense because UNICEF has plenty of built-in affinity.
But Helen Mirren’s charity is called “Help the Aged.” Sounds worthy enough, but I’ve never heard of it and there’s no website link, which means that most of these charities will get no more than just the $10,000 out of this thing.
That’s a pity.
That’s what makes it so appealing to celebrities… they get to stay in lavish Mandarin hotels for the price of the time it took to do the photo shoot. Better still for the celebrities, the ads feature them, not the hotels. In the process they look like good citizens. If you listen closely you can almost hear agents the world over calling the Mandarin’s ad agency.
By contrast, how interesting would it be if the Mandarin Oriental Group agreed to match what the celebrity donates to his or her preferred charity up to a certain amount? Interesting and unlikely. Most charitable donations from celebrities come in the form of in-kind gifts…read ‘time.’
There’s other things to like in this campaign. The celebrity list is an accomplished and eclectic group, with an especially strong showing of Asians, which makes sense since better that half of the Mandarin’s hotels are in Asia.
However, I think the creative is spare and subtle to the point almost of obfuscation, especially when it comes to the charities. “Liam Neeson for UNICEF” makes sense because UNICEF has plenty of built-in affinity.
But Helen Mirren’s charity is called “Help the Aged.” Sounds worthy enough, but I’ve never heard of it and there’s no website link, which means that most of these charities will get no more than just the $10,000 out of this thing.
That’s a pity.
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