In an article in Furniture Today, David Perry wrote an article called "Industry’s love affair with celebrities a good thing."
He comments on some of the headlines offered in a recent Furniture Today publication. Here they are:
* Trump to Union City: ‘You’re hired.’ That story revealed that my friends at Union City worked on short notice to supply French provincial chairs, loveseats, etageres and other pieces to the company that produces the NBC-TV hit, “The Apprentice.” Replicas of those pieces, featured on “The Apprentice,” will be in Union City’s High Point showroom next month.
* Sklar gets into celeb act with Designer Guys line. These Designer Guys have a home decorating show seen weekly on HGTV Canada. Sklar Peppler turned to them to launch its first line of celebrity furniture.
* Arizona’s Razmataz welcomes Cristina. That would be Spanish-language television personality Cristina Saralegui, who recently drew 2,000 fans and invited guests to Razmataz Furniture in Chandler, Ariz. Wow! That is an incredible turnout.
* Powell plans Payne visits. Powell Co. is offering dealers a chance to take part in a promotion to support its collections by designer Michael Payne, who is host of TV’s “Designing for the Sexes.”
After making these observations, Mr. Perry comes to these conclusions:
"Note that all of those celebrities have prospered in the bright lights of television. For all of its faults, television continues to mint new generations of bright, articulate men and women who can help consumers make better, more confident design decisions."
"And that helps bring more attention to the entire home furnishings category. When was the last time you had 2,000 consumers in your store?"
I think that this is an response based upon faulty thinking. For example, I recently wrote in this blog about Celebrities that promote products, in a lot of ways, end up being more the one that benefits from it than those products or businesses they're promoting.
The statement that he makes saying that TV continues to "mint new generations of bright, articulate men and women who can help consumers make better, more confident design decisions" is a little off to me. When was the last time you had a celebrity represent a product and the thought come to you that you're sure glad they made you more confident in the product they represented?
Now occasionally that can happen, but the general overall tone of these conclusions is based upon being more starstruck than upon reality.
Getting a huge turnout based upon a celebrity showing up doesn't mean a thing. What are the results of that turnout over a period of time, minus the cost of that celebrity, is the real question.
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