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.