:: adgruntie :: Pointless Use of Celebrity

+ Independent reports on consumers' feelings towards celebrities trying to influence their buying. Apparently research is starting to show that the red-carpet walkers aren't making much of a dent in consumer consumption. British market research company, Mintel, did a survey and found three out of five adults are "bored with celebrities" and a further one in five is "celebrity resistant." It's rather amusing too if you think about the number of ads in the Super Bowl this year that banked on using celebrities in their spots. A majority of them could have saved a bunch of money and just hired any random actor to achieve the same effect.

But for some reason there is a feeling that using a big name will bring big sales. Maybe one upon a time it was, but it's just not true anymore. Along with that you now have celebs like Beckham and Michael Jordan who shill a increasingly long list of products and companies. Why should consumers bother thinking that Beckham really does use Gillette or any of the other products he sells when you see him in a plethora of ads for other things? It definitely doesn't help the brand to pick the same celebrities that are being used all over. How do you stand out if viewers can't tell if Jordan is selling batteries or hotdogs? They just remember seeing Jordan in the ad. It could have been for Hanes.

What makes the most sense is what makes sense to the concept and the brand, not just throwing in some celebrity for the sake of doing so. But it seems so many marketers/ad agencies/clients just want to work with which ever famous person they like and just build a campaign around that. And that seems like an awful waste of money.