Celebrities Should Not Be Used In Advertising By Sue Jozui

Ever since the start of commercial radio in the 20’s and the since the first silver screen entered the market, broadcasting messages by celebrities has been a tool employed to endorse products.”Just about every star was associated with one sponsor’s product he or she plugged.”(1). Over the years celebrity endorsement became an essential part of marketing (more than 25% of television ads feature celebrities)(5), for the endorser it became an easy way of generating an income while for the endorsing company it became a guaranteed way to reach a wide segment of potential clients.

Sue Jozui in her excerpt, she proclaims false advertising is wrong and that “we should boycott this type of advertising”. The author supports her statement by first stating what we should do, as in boycott and get rid of celebrities advertising for a large corporation. She continues by claiming that it is “insulting to the audience”. The authors purpose is to argue that celebrities advertising a product is unfair to smaller businesses so that consumers who see a bad product but see their favorite actor or celebrity using it they immediately want such product. The author Jozui uses a sarcastic but more serious tone in explaining why false advertising is a bad thing. The author uses a very well thought out argument because doing false advertising is wrong due to bad or unsturdy products that you could spend a lot of money on but will end up breaking in a couple weeks when it says it will last over a year.

“People are more likely to pay attention to a TV commercial if one of their favorite players is talking, than they would be if the owner of the company was the star” (Miller). It is the association with the known and likeable character which may attract people to follow celebrity endorsements. It may also be the association with success which the athlete is characterizing. Whatever the case may be, Miller gives tips of what marketing companies look for before persuading a player with an endorsement:

Celebrity Endorsement is a form of brand or advertising that involves a well-known individual using their fame to help promote a product or service. The most common business users of products are manufactures of perfumes, and clothing. Some Techniques that are used are for example, television ads and launch event appearances.

The positive feedback on products to assure quality and may lead to a purchase decision. Endorsements by celebrities and models play an important role in such buying patterns.

People think “oh that product looks amazing, I want it” just because celebrities are in the advertisement, and it looks more credible. Consumers get influenced into buying products when the advertisement is amusing. Although that may be the case, it is up to the consumer to be responsible with what he/she is buying. Cover Girl’s Plumping Mascara commercial featuring Katy Perry does not get every girl persuade to buy it. Even though the commercial is great and looks like the product works really well, does not mean every person who sees the advertisement feels pressured into buying the product. Several men and women believe it is insulting to use celebrity advertisement to promote products and others think it is the buyer who has the responsibility of not getting suckered into buying everything he/she sees. Also advertisment is a way to promote products, celebrities should be allowed in

Use of celebrities in advertising is no new concept, companies have used celebrities to sell everything from cars, to moisturizer. Celebrities, due to our consumerist and media based society, are the ideal salespeople. (Wright, 2015) PETA’s campaign team understands that celebrity can help sell products and put a spin on that marketing technique by using celebrity endorsement in order to sell their ideals, and a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. Celebrity endorsement can help companies and non-profit organizations such as PETA to gain public recognition, and to make a strong impression on viewers and consumers, so that they will remember the product, or in PETA’s case, consumers will remember the ideals and advocacy that the organization is promoting. (Fleck, Korchia, & Le Roy, 2012) It’s also apparent that a celebrities attractiveness has something to do with it as well. Fleck, Korchia, and Le Roy also state that “A celebrity spokesperson's physical attractiveness has a positive impact on brand recall, attitude toward the brand and purchasing intent”

One of the main differences in our findings was whether or not our interviewees would stop buying from a brand if the celebrity endorsing them had a scandal. The answers to this question were all over the board. Some said that they don’t care if a celebrity messes up and it has no effect on their relationship with the brand, while others thought that unless the brand was directly involved, they also did not care. Some, however, said that they would stop purchasing from a brand if they had a scandal with a celebrity

“This kind of marketing is misleading and insults the intelligence of the audience (Jozui).” Jozui is explaining that using a celebrity as an endorser provides automatic approval and because of that doesn’t provide much evidence of how effective the product is. However, the consumer should have the ability and knowledge to do research on the product. ¨Am I going to buy the newest SUV because an attractive talk show host gets paid to…(Jozui).¨ Just because somebody is paid to pretend to like a product does not automatically give the product approval. Not everybody would agree with the right to advertise freely however, companies have every right to do

Celebrity endorsement is possibly the most successful form of advertising. The fact that a celebrity approves of a product is often enough for people to get on board. Advertisements create a false life or image. Chiat says in his article: “Advertising--including movies, TV, and music videos--presents to us a world that is not our world but rather a collection of images and ideas created for the purpose of selling” (Chiat 212) .There is no better way to sell a false life or idea than to have a celebrity sell it for you.

As mention previous, when certain celebrities endorse a product, the credibility is lost to an extent. That

Celebrity endorsements are one of the most famous methods of marketing used today. Celebrity endorsers are being used in about 25% of all the advertisements that we can see on the television. Marketers are investing large sums of money to have a contract with the celebrities as they believe that celebrities can affect the chances of success of a product. (Erica Weintraub Austina*, 2008) Kiakati

Celebrity endorsement is a billion dollar industries today (Kambitsis et al., 2002) with companies signing deals with celebrities hoping that they can help them stand out from the clutter and give them a unique and relevant position in the mind of the consumer. According to Solomon (2002), the reasons for using celebrity endorsement involves its potential to create awareness, positive feelings towards their advertising and brand. Research has shown that celebrity endorsement can have an impact on the consumer’s attention, recall, evaluations and purchase intentions (Atkin and Block, 1993), Celebrity endorsement is a widely used tactic in marketing and much research

In addition, the company makes humorous advertisements to mimic auto advertisements where advertisements are placed on the rear of the specialty DXP. Use of celebrities is also done which according to Kotler and Keller (2012) is a strategy that hinges on wooing the following of the celebrities. Celebrities are considered to have market influence and thus their approval of a product is likely to generate increased sales. The choice of celebrities is however important to ensure that brand identity is not lost. The company should therefore be keen to ensure that celebrities who have an influence on healthy eating are chosen so as to drive

Furthermore there are other researches as well which suggest that the approach of using a celebrity to endorse a product can not be viewed as a general practice of using any celebrity for any product endorsement. Pornpitakpan (2003), while discussing match-up hypothesis, describes the results of a study by Erdogen et al (2001) which suggests that "British advertising agency managers considered various criteria like celebrity- target audience match, celebrity-product match, overall image of the celebrity, cost of hiring the celebrity, celebrity trustworthiness, controversy risk, celebrity familiarity, celebrity prior endorsements, celebrity likeability, risk of celebrity overshadowing the brands, celebrity expertise, celebrity profession and celebrity physical attractiveness". A match between the target market and the endorser is important for effectively transmitting right message to target audience. For example, the advertisements which are produced by Pepsi, are mostly targeted for youths and so the celebrity endorsers that they use in their advertisements are young personalities. The match up hypothesis goes true for the multiple celebrity advertising as well. A good example of this is the Pulse Polio campaign taken up in India to eradicate the polio