Celebrity Endorsements

According to Roger Pe from The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Celebrities are like honeycombs. Fans go crazy when they see celebrities in a restaurant, in the mall or anywhere in public. To add to that, hiring a celebrity for a certain product is not always the answer. There is more to using fame in advertisements. Even those good products endorsed by a celebrity will not do any better. Thus, celebrity endorsements should be decreased to even out competition with the companies who do not use celebrities, promote quality and creativity of the advertisement and to eliminate the irrelevance of the celebrity and the product.

            There has always been a problem with using celebrities for certain advertisements. The first issue is to even out competition with those companies who chose not to use celebrities. Though it is the choice of the company whether to use a celebrity or not, it is unfair for them because people would rather buy the products where the celebrity is the endorsement. What the people don’t realize is that it is not all about whether there is a celebrity or not but it’s the message the commercial portrays. In one of the Bear Brand commercials where the mother calls out the names of the family member, none of them were celebrities but the commercial portrayed a meaningful message, with the help of Bear Brand, one can always be present in everything he/she does. As what was written on an article from Inquirer, everything boils down to a good product. Even though a company uses a celebrity, the consumers should know that it is the product that matters and not the celebrity. Maybe some companies would rather not use a celebrity because they might think that the celebrity has too much on their plate and would rather get the money instead. Also, overexposure of the celebrity may cause a downfall to the advertisement company.

            Another issue with using celebrities for certain companies is the lack of quality and creativity in advertisement. Certain companies would hire a celebrity and tell them to memorize their lines like robots, stand in front of the camera and recite their lines. This can be disadvantageous to the company in such a way if suddenly the celebrity loses his/her fame, thus resulting to contradicting himself/herself in advertisement. One commercial that can relate to this issue is Georgina Wilson’s Lactacyd commercial. To be honest, it is actually not a bad commercial but the fact that the company thought of getting her, someone who is already fair skinned and endorsing a product that would make girls whiter shows the lack of creativity. People may disagree with this because of the fact that celebrities can make it seem like the advertisement is believable. (Kamins et. al., 1989) The public can be biased because a pretty faced or a good-looking celebrity is the one endorsing the product.

            Another issue is the irrelevance of the product and the celebrity. According to Roger Pe from Philippines Daily Inquirer, just because one is popular, pretty or good looking does not mean he/she will fit the role of the advertisement. One example is the company of Tide where they used Vic Sotto as the endorser. There is no connection with Vic Sotto and the Tide bar. The consumer should know that he actually does not do his own laundry but shows in the commercial that he is the one doing the laundry. Another commercial that shows lack of connection with the celebrity and the product is Daniel Padilla advertising Whisper. This product is a sanitary pad intended for women and not advertised by men. Just because he is someone who is adored by a lot of ladies does not mean that he should promote sanitary pads. Some might disagree with this because first of all, they focus more on the celebrity and not the advertisement and second, the relevance of the celebrity and the product is important because when they do not connect, the consumers would think otherwise in buying the product that is being endorsed. Try asking ladies about the advertisement of Derek Ramsay on Century Tuna billboard because they’ll definitely buy Century Tuna because he’s the endorser of the product. The celebrity and the product should always connect to show cohesiveness.