Celebrity Business Application: Everything You Need to Know

Are you looking for the best ways to make money from your fans?

Many celebrities and influencers follow different ways to monetize their audience, such as affiliate marketing, advertising, accepting donations, etc. 

Celebrity apps are also one of them, as many celebrities and influencers have launched their apps in the market. 

But what are celebrity apps, and how to build them? Let’s check the celebrity business application case study and understand how you can also develop the same for your audience.

What is a celebrity app?

Apps that celebrities launch are known as celebrity apps. Many celebrities are interested in launching their apps to make new income sources from their fans. They sell their exclusive cosmetics, clothes, books, and other merchandise from their apps.

Also, along with creating and launching their products, major celebrities have launched their apps in other domains such as streaming apps, games, emoji best keyboard, etc.

Let’s check the celebrity business application case study of different apps to understand the best way to monetize and build your celebrity apps.

An overview: Case studies of celebrity apps

Check out the apps owned by celebrities. Knowing these apps will help you understand how to establish your successful platform in the app market by looking at their strategies.

1. Rare beauty

Actress and singer Selena Gomez launched Rare beauty in 2020. The platform contains beauty-related items for the eyes, lips, and face ranging from highlighters to eyebrow pencils and foundation to concealer. 

Started in	2020
Founder	Selena Gomez
Developed by	Rare beauty
Available platforms	Website
Headquarter	US
Revenue	$60M (within its first year of launch)

Understand how Rare beauty hit the success:

Brand mission	The brand aims to raise the fund for its foundation, known as The Rare Impact Fund. The brand’s mission is to support the mental health of its employees and community.
Challenge	Their brand has only ten years to raise the “Rare Impact Fund” amount upto $10M since its launch.
Strategy	The company has introduced “Donate for discounts,” where the brand offers 10% off the app users when they donate $5 for supporting mental health.  The company hired web developers and other staff to build a high-quality website for listing their products.
Results	The campaign helped the company to raise its AOV by 34%. Customer engagement level increased participation in the donation campaign by 35.5%.
What do customers love about Rare Beauty?	All the products mentioned on the websites are cruelty-free. The brand runs a “Rare Impact Fund” for social welfare, which motivates customers for their contribution. Rare beauty promotes uniqueness from their message, “stop comparing ourselves to each other and just start embracing our own uniqueness.”

2. Tidal

The app is owned by Jay Z and other artists that offer streaming services for audio and HD music videos and exclusive content for the app user. The tidal app is the first artist-owned streaming service on the app market.

Tidal is free to use; however, it offers a monthly subscription ranging from $4.99 to $ 29.99. The key point that makes the Tidal app more successful is providing exclusive content from the artist having their mutual ownership of the Tidal app and from other popular musicians.

Started in	2009
Founder	JayZ
Developed by	Aspiro
Available platforms/devices	Android, iOS, macOS, OSX, Windows, Wearables
Headquarter	US
Revenue	$100-200M (per year)

Here’s how Tidal makes their brand successful:

Brand mission	The brand aims to get recognition from music lovers by offering them unique and exclusive music experiences.
Challenge	The brand wants to develop a unique feature for their app users, i.e., to allow them to play music simultaneously in sync with an unlimited number of smartphones.
Strategy	The brand owner “JayZ” has partnered with other artists to let them release their exclusive music and albums on the Tidal app.  The brand has partnered with a Swedish software company named “Aspiro” to add all the desired features to the app.
Results	Because of offering exclusivity and multiple features, the brand generated $166.9 million in 2019 from its app users.
What do customers love about the Tidal app?	Exclusive music from different artists. Playing music simultaneously by syncing an unlimited number of smartphones. Fans can support their artist through the “Direct Artist Payout” program. The app allocates upto 10% of users’ monthly subscriptions towards their most streaming artists.   Losseles and immersive sound quality from their “TIDAL HiFi” and “TIDAL HIFI PLUS” services.

3. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood 

The game is owned by Kim Kardashian, where the players can create their fashion stories. It offers its app users the to live their fashion life and dress up in many designer clothes for a fresh celebrity look.

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game offers multiple entertaining ways for users, such as living a superstar life, conquering the fashion world, and joining new squads. 

Users can choose their movie star and can connect with a community of players all around the world that are passionate about fashion.

Started in	2014
Founder	Kim Kardashian
Developed by	Glu Mobile
Available platforms	iOS, Web browser, Android, macOS, Classic Mac OS
Headquarter	US
Revenue	$160M

Check the business strategy of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game

Brand mission	The game’s main aim is to let app users experience celebrity life and interact with app users in a glamorous world.
Challenge	The company wants to provide a great gaming experience by implementing unique features to the app.
Strategy	The company partnered with the game-making company “Glu Mobile” for game building and implementation of all the desired features.   Implementing a tweet-based feature to encourage users to tweet in the game for reward points. Players need to post in-game tweets(but the game tweets also appear on players’ real Twitter accounts’ feed) with an attached download link for the game.
Results	The game became viral on Twitter and other social media platforms, helping the game to attract 1M users worldwide.

After checking the celebrity business application case study of different apps, check popular app types many celebrities prefer to launch for their fans. 

What types of apps do celebrities make?

Here are a few app types celebrities prefer to launch for their fans.

1. Celebrity dating app

The fans will love to meet their stars in real life. Many dating apps are available where users will pay a heavy amount to meet with their favorite stars by scheduling their one-on-one meet in restaurants and cafes. 

Celebrity app owners make a high income by allowing their fans to meet with them at a scheduled place. Take a look at Raya as a perfect example of a celebrity dating app. 

2. Celebrity fashion app

Many celebrities like Selena Gomez and Rihanna started fashion apps to promote their beauty products. 

Create your celebrity fashion app if you share beauty-related tips with your fans. A celebrity fashion app can be a great choice to make a high income from your audience.

3. Celebrity games app

There are many celebrity games like the game “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,” “Starlets” by the Jenner sisters, Britney Spears’ “American dream,” etc. 

If your audience/fans also love to play games, then you can build and publish your celebrity games app to make a high income from your fans by monetizing your game in various ways.

4. Sports celebrity fitness app

Many celebrities have launched their fitness course and products or promoted the fitness products of other brands on their fitness app. A great example of a fitness app is Jennis, launched by a British athlete, “Ennis-Hill.”  

You can create and promote your sports and fitness-related content among your audience by starting your sports celebrity fitness app to make money from your fans. 

Check the list of features standard in most celebrity apps so you can implement the same in your app. 

What features do celebrities include in their apps?

1. Live streaming performances

Many celebrity apps provide live streaming to their fans so they can interact in real time with their audience. Also, live streaming can increase the engagement level in your app, bringing better results to your business. 

Fans can put their comments and emojis-based reactions during live streaming, which is common in most popular live streaming and social media apps such as YouTube and Instagram.

2. Video chat with celebrities

Along with live streaming, some celebrities prefer to include a video chat feature in their app. Video chat enables celebrities to speak with their fans for a scheduled duration.

Offering a video chat helps celebrities to generate additional income sources by taking a fee from the fans for doing video chat.

3. Upcoming events calendar

Celebrities can post information regarding their upcoming events using their app’s event calendar. Integration of Google calendar or other popular calendar-based APIs enables celebrities to include a calendar so celebrities and their fans can use it to update and track upcoming events. 

4. Category-based content

Most celebrities share their content on their apps, such as blogs and vlogs, to offer valuable content to their fans. Still, they might feel challenged to distribute their content based on their fans’ preferences.    

However, categorizing content based on their fans’ demographics, such as their gender, language, nationality, age range, etc., helps their fans access the content based on their preference.

5. Advance post scheduling

Celebrities have busy routines, making them unable to post their content and information on their app. 

Instead, most celebrity apps have an advanced post schedule that allows them to schedule their post in advance so that they can post them at the preferred time for their fans.

6. Fifteen-second reels

Many celebrities upload their reel content regularly on their profiles. Integrating 15 seconds into the celebrities’ app helps them increase their user base and engagement. 

For audience-loving short-duration videos, instead of posting on other social media platforms, celebrities post their reels on the app to increase the app’s popularity.

7. In-app games & contests

Based on fans’ demographics, celebrities like Kimm Kardashian and other well-known celebrities have launched their games for the fans.

Celebrities’ games offer contests and other activities to provide more entertaining activities for fans. 

8. Lifestyle tips, blogs & vlogs

Celebrities share their lifestyle blog and vlog for their fans from their apps. Also, stars can provide the latest and most relevant content to their fans to provide a better value to the fans in the app.

9. Major news & announcements

With celebrity apps. The stars can update their users and fans by publishing major news and announcements relevant to their upcoming events, such as concerts and live streaming.

Integrating the separate section for news and announcement in their app helps them to make more sales by selling tickets for upcoming events and concerts.

10. Paid content and media sharing

Offering paid content also helps celebrities to make money from their apps. Celebrities offer exclusive content in exchange for charging free from their fans. Many celebrities/influencers have already implemented these features in their app to make money. 

11. Payment gateway integration

Celebrities’ apps offer multiple payment options to their fans to allow them to purchase paid subscriptions, content, and other products from the app. 

Integrating multiple payment options helps them to boost their business as no one would like to register on new payment options for making purchases on celebrities or other apps.   

12. Merchandise store

Celebrities boost their business by selling merchandise to their fans on the app by implementing e-commerce features to their app. 

For making merchandise, they use print-on-demand services for labeling their brands’ designs and posters on different products such as T-shirts, Caps, Mugs, etc. 

13. Celebrity course purchases

Most celebrities have a huge fan base because they share valuable lifestyles, careers, and other valuable tips among fans. Mostly these celebrities offer paid courses on their app to make money from their fans.

14. Photo & video gallery

Like Instagram, celebrities can add photos and videos to their app to make the timeline of their app users more interesting. Adding the features of a photo and video gallery helps celebrities quickly share their latest life events with their fans.   

15. Social media integration

Integrating social media with a celebrity app will help app users make their profile on the app with a single click. Allowing the app to take permission from users to use their social media profiles enables the app to take users’ information for quick sign-up.

Also, with the help of social media integration, the users quickly share products launched by celebrities among their connections and timeline. 

Social media integration allows celebrities to generate more audiences for their app and make better sales from their merchandise products and courses.

What are the stages you will go through during your celebrity app development? Let’s check. 

How are celebrity apps developed?

Understanding how celebrities make their app will help you develop apps like Tidal and more:

1. Doing market research to understand fans’ demands

Celebrities understand their fans so well. Therefore they only develop apps and digital products relevant to their fans’ interests. 

Similarly, you can study the best celebrity apps in the market to understand their business model. And then you can implement the same into your celebrity business application.

Also, looking at different celebrity business application case studies can help you understand their strategies and what targets they have achieved with their unique marketing approach. 

Check the following steps for new product development to help you gather the best ideas for app development.   

2. Exploring app ideas for the fans

The stage involves figuring out whether it is possible to implement an app idea into a real celebrity app or not. 

For example: Kim Kadarshian’s Hollywood game wanted to implement unique tweet-based features. For that they contacted app development companies to bring this concept into reality.   

Also, you can figure out all the challenges of developing your celebrity app. You can set your budget for app development and work on creating your app’s MVP. 

3. App design that hits the target audience 

Celebrities know the importance of having a user-friendly interface in their app. User interface plays a significant role in providing a great user experience for their app users and fans. 

The key to bringing the best in the market is by doing extensive research on already existing celebrity apps. This helps in designing  a unique UI for your celebrity app. All the celebrity apps designed make sure it’s functional, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing—and that’s just the beginning. Further, the features added and the goal of your brand should reflect in your app. 

When everything is in place, the developer team proceeds with designing the prototype. 

4. App development to build celebrity app

The development team selected by celebrities help them to build their app from start to finish. Moreover, most celebrities have an entire development team for their digital products. 

The app development team works on the development process to make celebrity apps fully functional. During app development, the team will work on creating classes and API for their app. 

The team will integrate the front end part to the back end of celebrity apps to make all the UI elements of your app ready to use.

5. App testing to fix all bugs in celebrity apps

App testing helps celebrities to check their app before launching them in the market, so they can inform app developers to make any required changes to the app.

Also, testing the app by themselves helps celebrities to understand how their fans/audience will feel while using their app. 

Getting an idea about the app’s user experience can help celebrities understand each part of their app so they can improve them early. 

6. Launching celebrity apps in the market

Celebrities perform different marketing strategies to promote their celebrity app. Even more, the development team helps celebrities to optimize their app on each app distribution platform, such as Android and iOS. 

If you outsource your app to the app development team, you don’t have to worry as the team already has experience with app launching on different platforms.

So, what are the best ways celebrities use to make money from their apps? Let’s check.

How do celebrities make money from their apps?

You can check the different ways by which celebrity apps make money. Checking their monetization model will help you better understand your business profits from app development.

Here are some of the most popular monetization models:

1. In-app advertising

Most celebrity apps (especially mobile games) have ads for different brands. The ads are mostly shown on their free-to-use apps and games.

Also, celebrities have partnered with the best advertising networks such as Google AdMob, Apple search ads, etc. Each ad network has its CPM rate, and choose the best one that offers the best CPM rate for your app. 

Also, there are many ways to make money from free apps. 

2. Paid apps

Instead of ads, most celebrities have set the price of their app that their fans pay at the time of app downloading, or some celebrities generate income by offering paid app subscriptions to their fans, and the fans pay based on a monthly or annual basis.

Paid app monetization model is rare but still works if the app is worth using.  

3. In-app purchases

Most celebrities have launched their digital items or products based on their fans’ demographics, such as gender, occupation, residence, etc. 

For example, Celebrities like Selena Gomez have launched their beauty products on their app, “Rare beauty.”  

4. Affiliate marketing

Instead of putting ads on different brands, many celebrities prefer to sell the products of other brands with the help of affiliate marketing. 

Each brand offers a different commission rate and offers its brand promotion to celebrities with an audience relevant to the products.

Also, along with these four app monetization models, there are many other ways to make money from celebrity apps that you can check from this video.

Why do celebrities make celebrity apps? 

Many celebrities have invested their money into other places to generate income in the long run. The reason being that if their audience forgets about them, celebrities will occasionally go out of business and end their careers. Said that, popularity is a much needed thing for them. 

So, being a modern solution, celebrities from all fields need technology by their sides to engage their audiences. And that’s where celebrity app development takes place. 

The majority of celebrities create apps in order to interact with their current fan base and grow their community. While some celebrities, like Ellen DeGeneres and Kim Kardashian, create only for profit applications, other celebrities create free apps that enable them to forge close bonds with their fanbase.

The celebrity app helps to generate lifetime income, and can be used as an exclusive platform where celebrities and fans can interact. 

Moreover, apps on different platforms can help generate more fan base, which can help boost their career as a celebrity. 

Do you have a concept for a celebrity app?

The market for celebrity apps has the advantage that its potential is limitless and wholly dependent on the celebrity’s goals and personal brand.

Building and publishing a celebrity app requires an excellent design and development effort. If you are new to the app development business, it will be better to assume that you don’t have your app development team.

In that case, the best decision you can take to develop a celebrity app is outsourcing the app to an experienced app development company.

The development team will build and publish your celebrity app for your business.

You can contact Idea Usher to outsource your app development project and get a free consultation. 

Contact us:

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FAQ

1. What are the most popular app types that celebrities prefer to develop?

The most popular app types are given as follows:

• Celebrity Dating App
• Celebrity Fashion App
• Political Public Figure App
• Celebrity Games App
• Film Stars Event App
• Sports Celebrity Fitness App
• Famous Chef Cooking App
• Comedians’ Stand Up Performance App
• Production Houses’ Film Promotion App
• Celebrity Off-Screen Life App

2. What are the best celebrity apps?

Here is the list of best celebrity apps:

• Kim Kardashian: Hollywood 
• Tidal 
• Britney spears: American dream
• Path to fame
• Hanx writer
• Knock Knock
• Shots
• Shakira: Love rocks