Celebrity Clout
July 27, 2008
We all see those celebrity endorsements on TV or in print. Have they ever swayed you to buy a product? Never really had any effect on my purchasing decision. Probably cause my celebrity IQ is in the single digits. I am the guy at the party or in the conversation who doesn’t know that famous star. The one guy who’s asking, “Who’s Hannah Montana?”. My five year old daughter had to clue me in to her being the greatest rock star alive. Any thing she sees with her image, she has to have.
According to New York Times online article, Nothing Sells Like Celebrity, advertisers double the use of celebrities in advertisements over the last decade, and last year they appeared in 14% of all advertisements. Celebrity endorsements do help sell a product.
What makes the celebrity endorsement sale a product? The blog, Celebrity Endorsement, Once More Softly, by Grant McCracken sheds a lot of light on this question. Check out this blog, and especially the comments. Let me know if you agree with him.
Daniel,
Interesting article, I cannot say that I have never been swayed by a celebrity endorsement of a product to buy that product. I certainly cannot say that because a celebrity appears in a commercial for a product I will buy the product. It fact with the newest Geico commercials featuring celebrity I dislike those commercial so much that if I had Geico insurance I would probably cancel it because those commercials are dumb. The funny part is all of these commercial being as with for instance “Joe Black is not a real TV person so we hire a real TV person”. Fact is they probably would have done better with Joe Black alone.
I won’t buy anything just because it’s advertised by a celebrity. I will research a product and if I like what I find out that it is what it’s advertised to be I will buy it. A lot of times I will shy away from something a lot of times just because it is advertised by a celebrity.