Celebrity Endorsements’ effect on the youth
By Cooper Mas
On paper, it seems stupid, why would someone be willing to spend money on a product just because some celebrity endorsed it? It doesn’t mean the product is quality, or that the celebrity actually enjoys it. They’re nothing more than marionettes strung along by contracts to sell some random product. Even when it's a product they're the creators of, it's still soulless. They’re not gonna trash-talk a product they directly profit from.
I’m not above this; I’ve fallen victim to celebrity endorsements countless times. Times like MrBeast's Feastables (aggressively mediocre chocolate) or Logan Paul’s Prime (Knockoff Gatorade), where I’ve tried out a product entirely due to celebrity endorsement.
Despite how laughably stupid it was, it still worked on me. A mindset that many join me in, as these endorsements have been massively successful despite how fundamentally illogical they are.
Multiple studies have proven so, as customers are more likely to remember advertisements including celebrities, and they’re more willing to pay for the product being advertised.
It takes years for a brand to build up trust with its audience. But by hiring a celebrity to advertise, they can leverage their trustworthiness and credibility into their brand, making consumers more willing to buy from them. They make the brand seem cooler, appealing mostly to a younger audience.
They can expand their audiences by directing a celebrity audience to a product. Hiring Stephen Curry to endorse Under Armor has certainly turned a portion of his 58 million Instagram followers into customers. They can direct that audience to a product of their choice.
For these reasons, companies are willing to pay massive amounts of money for celebrity endorsement. Nike paid Michael Jordan 1.3 billion dollars, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lebron James 1 billion dollars, alongside other endorsement deals. Adidas paid 1 billion dollars to Lionel Messi. These endorsements are so successful that companies are willing to pay billions upon billions of dollars to secure them.
Logan Paul and KSI are two massive celebrities with a combined subscriber count of over 40 million, both creators having a loyal audience that’s been built up over several years. Using this audience, they kick-started a brand that was instantly successful. In their first year of business, they had a revenue of $250 million dollars, and their company has a projected value of 3.1 billion dollars in the future. Usually, it takes years to build up your audience as a business, but their endorsement of it allows it to succeed instantly.
Younger people tend to be more susceptible to advertisements, something I’ve personally experienced and been victimized by through my traumatic experience with Prime.
Logan Paul and KSI’s audience were mostly teenage boys, as me and my peers fit within that demographic; that endorsement was effective on us. We’d talk about if they were stocked at the stores yet, which they never were. Despite high demand, Prime wasn’t sold anywhere in town. When a friend of mine came back from vacation, he hoarded up on Prime and sold it for an inflated value of over 500 percent. Each bottle costing around 10 dollars. I bought one, and instantly regretted it as it tasted like low-quality artificial sugary garbage. Leaving an aftertaste of both artificial sugar and shame that I wasted money based entirely on a biased celebrity's opinion.