Vice president of-group publisher of Star magazine, Michelle Myers, in a recent interview said that "the number of editorial pages devoted to entertainment and celebrity increased by 316 percent over the last 10 years. Celebrities graced the cover of 41 percent of U.S. magazine covers in 2005, versus only 4 percent of covers dedicated to national affairs."
Usually the ones most covered are the nuttiest, goofiest and screwiest people around. Of course a lot of that is planned specifically by their publicists, nevertheless, a large percentage of people eat this stuff up.
How can this be used to add to our brands?
With the type of overexposed celebs, usually they won't fit into the wholesome service or product market as they usually bring protests and lost sales and credibility.
If you carry an edgy product or service, these types of celebrity creations might work very well for you. There is a lot of risk with celebrities and it hasn't come close to being a science yet. The Davie-Brown index is attempting to remedy some of that.
Even celebrities that fit into a more "safe" mode, don't always work out as some represent so many brands that they lose their uniqueness and connection to any one product, and instead the celebrity becomes the brand.
One thing that some do to help this is to put their endorser and product together across all marketing platforms so their is at least some relationship recognized by consumers between the product and the celebrity.
We can all count on the fact that misbehaving celebrities do capture the interest of a huge audience, the question has yet to be answered whether this is really good for business or not.
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