Celebrity Culture and Mass Marketing Essay

It is not uncommon to see celebrities on TV market in other products, author Sue Jozui has other opinions. Author Sue Jozui in her excerpt, explains her view that there should be rules for celebrities endorsing other products and being misleading. The author supports her opinion by first explaining about how a celebrity may advertise a coffee, or a brand of car. She continues by arguing that advertisements are misleading. The author´s purpose is to draw awareness to this issue and wanting a prompt change so that new rules can be put in place to regulate the marketing and advertising industry. The author sets an informative tone for the consumer. The argument Sue Jozui, the author is making is that she believes there should be rules on celebrity endorsements, however the consumer may disagree because they have the power to buy the product.

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”

“UK consumers are increasingly cynical when it comes to celebrity endorsement - they admire the straight talking approach of Jamie Oliver, who resonates much more with the everyday shopper than some global A-list celebrities” (Niall McKinney, Director of UTalkMarketing.com)1

Therefore, the media uses celebrities to promote products, knowing that our attention will be taken by a celebrity everyone knows. According to Donatelle, the images and celebrities in the media set the standard we find attractive (para. 7). Based on the sentence, the media uses celebrities to create a perfect image of what people should look like. Americans have a phenomenon and an obsession with appearances. Yet, Soloman article talks about linking celebrities to brands so that the product used or endorse also take on an aspirational quality (para. 15). For example, enormous fans of Beyoncé will purchase her perfume to smell similar to her. Both articles state how celebrities are used as messages to get a point across to society, whether it is to promote a product or give an idea of something people should do. The media has shaped our preferences and has caused society to mimic the actions of

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.

Celebrities can have significant influence on consumer decisions because they are recognizable and admired by many of their followers. The majority of advertisers hire celebrities to influence people to buy their product. For example, a company would want to hire Stephen Curry, a basketball star, to be a spokesperson for the sportswear, Under Armor. This example demonstrates the fact that under armor believes that Stephen Curry, a professional basketball player, can persuade athletes to purchase their product. This causes consumers start believing that Under Armor is the new fashion for athletes.

Our society has an obsession with recognisable symbols and the nature of a celebrity has evolved to a brand-like status, where the characters of Hollywood are no longer people, but instead unmistakable signs of perfection. I believe that "in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, as the form of celebrity is nothing more than a created brand that even the simplest of humans can carefully

Altman, H. (2005, March 18). Celebrity culture. CQ Researcher, 15, 245-268. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/. Accessed 17 Nov. 2016.

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

Celebrities are everywhere in the news, the latest gossip appears in the weekly magazines without fail. Whether they be an actor, athlete, dancer, designer, model, singer or just rich; there is someone out there who is watching that person like a hawk, not letting a single breath go unnoticed. Such is the life of the rich and famous, under the incessant gaze of journalists and the paparazzi. Lives that many people take a great interest in and admire to the point where others would liken this great interest and admiration to a cult-like worship of celebrities. This is a brief description of what I think to be celebrity culture.

As I read through this verbose chapter I began to pick up on the dominating themes of celebrity culture and their development over time. I consider myself somewhat of a celebrity super fan but as I read I realized I have never dove deeper into the meaning of celebrity but merely skimmed the surface. During my perusal of the chapter many thought-provoking concepts jumped out at me.

misleading or insulting the intelligence of the customer. A celebrity can attract attention to a new or failing product and boost consumer ratings. While a celebrity usually does influence people to buy certain products, this does not mean that they are manipulating a person to buy it. Usually the makers of the product ensure that it looks appealing to the customers eye while the celebrity just advertises it and brings it positive attention.

It has been a great pleasure for me to work on this project. My sincere thanks to Ms. Kokil Jain ,my Marketing teacher for giving me an opportunity to work on this project whereby I was given a chance to study the impact of celebrity endorsement as a source of brandbuilding and on consumers buying behavior which helped me to increase the span of my knowledge and developed my thinking on more practical lines. I thank her for her guidance and support throughout

But this deceptive and mendacious image aims at befooling people because it can be obtained only through its false signifiers. Money is one of the best examples presenting such devastating and self- deceiving impact of modern celebrity culture on human beings. Image conscious people, in order to attain affluence, high status and fame which are only appearance not actual success, depend on the conspicuous consumption of materialistic signifiers. The concepts of material consumption, the false appearance and money are interrelated. Commenting on the source of inspiration, Peter Childs remarks that “it suggests through the increasingly intense popular cults of celebrity and fame, to the commercial greed of 1980s” (44).

Firms invest huge amounts as advertising expenditure for hiring the right celebrity. However there lies uncertainty with respect to the returns the company might be able to garner for the brand. Consumers perceive that the brand is of superior quality because it has been endorsed by a credible source. This makes endorsement as one of the key indicators of quality of any brand. The credibility of the corporate along with endorser credibility plays a significant role in shaping the attitude of the consumer towards the brand and the advertisement respectively. On the other hand, the over popularity of the celebrity can sometimes overshadow the brand. If the celebrity is involved in a number of endorsements, it creates confusion and hence negatively