Celebrity Endorsements: Money for Nothing?

Posted on Jan 13, 2011

AP / Koji Sasahara

In the world of advertising, celebrity always equals money, and anything that these luminaries—whether from entertainment, sports or even politics—touch (even by accident) is tantamount to tangible, profitable product placement, right?

Actually, not necessarily, according to a study of celeb endorsements published in Advertising Age under the startling headline, “Celebrities in Advertising Are Almost Always a Big Waste of Money.” And this is the sound of celebrities scrambling to pocket their free swag while it lasts.  —KA

Advertising Age:

We set out to understand whether celebrities today are really worth the significant investment that brands were making. We studied every nationally televised ad for the first 11 months of 2010 and found that celebrity ads performed either below average or merely equaled it. Specifically, our study, 2010 Celebrity Advertisements: Exposing a Myth of Advertising Effectiveness, 2010, showed that fewer than 12% of ads using celebrities exceeded a 10% lift, and one-fifth of celebrity ads had a negative impact on advertising effectiveness.

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