The Commercial Name Game.

I have some Ainsley Harriott soups in my kitchen cupboard (Ainsley Harriott is a celebrity chef in Britain) and it set me thinking again about how celebrity endorsement works, which seems to be as follows:

A company develops a new product and then goes to some appropriate celebrity and says ‘Please may we stick your name and face on the box and other marketing material? If you agree, we’ll give you a very great deal of money.’ So the celebrity says ‘OK’ and whistles all the way to the bank to pay in the very great deal of money. That’s just another example of the sillier side of modern times, but the interesting bit is this:

In order to defray the cost of paying the celebrity, with some more on top by way of extra profit, the company then has to charge more for the product than they otherwise would. And what that means is:

1. There’s no guarantee that the product will be superior just because it’s got a celebrity’s face on the box.

2. What is guaranteed is that the product will be overpriced.

So isn’t that a very compelling reason to avoid celebrity-endorsed products?

(I think I might have written all this in an earlier post, but I don’t remember. And I only bought my Ainsley Harriott soups because they were on half price promotion.)