Often, celebrities contract to endorse a product, but should they use the product regularly, or even like the product before they are allowed to claim that they “endorse” the product?
Marketing mix involves four P’s variables: product, place, price and promotion that should be used in marketing strategy to ensure value is delivered (Winer & Dhar, 2011). When celebrities are endorsing any product, it’s part of promotion. Based on law, promotion should not lie about price, quality and purpose (Jacoby & Meyers, n. d.). It is better to endorse product that they use but legally if they are not misleading consumers with false information, it is not illegal. Having celebrities in promotion may encourage consumers to buy the product but they must be targeted appropriately (Olenski, 2016). Can you imagine famous athlete endorsing house hold product like laundry detergent? The impact of endorsement depends on number of factors such as celebrity and product match, celebrity and target audience match besides their regular popularity values (Jain, 2011).
For example: Gordon Ramsay’s funny commercial about Chef. The commercial is funny. He has not provided any false information on any price, quality or purpose of any food and he is probably the right celebrity to do this advertisement because of the product and celebrity match.
Another example is Activia yogurt commercial. Activia commercial have Jamie Lee Curtis, a famous spokesman but since the advertisement made false statement about scientifically proven health benefits, later Dannon company had to pay $45 million to consumers who filed lawsuit and many consumers stopped buying this product (Weinmann & Bhasin, 2016).
So, my answer is, legally they can endorse any product if they tell the truth and not provide false information to consumers but for more impact, celebrity and product match is important to consider as well.
If you were assigned to sell a product called “Sweet Treats” with the slogan, “so sweet, it will make you tweet,” but you thought the product tasted sour, and not at all sweet, what would you do?
I would not accept the job to sell that product because I would not be the face of the product and giving the false information about the product. The first thing is it is illegal to provide false information about product and secondly if I am not convinced, I cannot convince other people to use it.
Explore where the line is between harmlessly implying that someone is promoting a product, and someone dishonestly claiming that they genuinely believe the product is the best.
If they are not providing wrong information about product, price, use without any proof, they are not crossing the line. It is ethically wrong to claim that they genuinely believe the product is the best unless they have tried every product from all competitors and have comparison report that also support the statement. It is better not to mention misleading information to differentiate the product from other competitor products that may create legal or ethical controversies in future and impact the brand. It is very difficult to recover the position in the market once consumers lose confidence and trust in the brand. If we consider some of the most successful advertisements such as the advertisements of Coca-Cola, Nike etc. we notice that these companies are selling product by associating the product with the consumer’s emotion rather than claiming what product can do nor talking about the product itself nor comparing with competitor products. In Nike’s advertisement “Just Do It” (https://www.youtube.com/
References:
Winer, R., & Dhar, R. (2011), Marketing management (4th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall. Retrieved from:https://my.uopeople.edu/
Federal Trade Commission (2015, June 15), Truth in Advertising. Retrieved on Jul 29, 2018 from: https://www.ftc.gov/news-
Jacoby & Meyers (n. d.), False and Misleading Advertising. Retrieved on Jul 29, 2018 from: http://www.jacobymeyers.com/
Jain V. (2011, Mar), Celebrity Endorsement and Its Impact on Sales: A Research Analysis Carried Out in India. Global Journal of Management and Business Research Vol 11 Issue 4 Version 1.0 ISBN: 0975-5853. Retrieved from:
https://globaljournals.org/
Olenski S. (2016, Jul 20), How Brands Should Use Celebrities For Endorsement. Retrieved on Jul 29, 2018 from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/
Weinmann K. & Bhasin K. (2011, Sep 16), 14 False Advertisement Scandals That Cost Brands Millions. Retrieved on Jul 29, 2018 from: https://www.businessinsider.
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