Brandwashed (27 page)

This is also the appeal of a much newer pop-culture idol,
Miley Cyrus. In case you don’t have a preteen daughter at home, this famous young lady is the star of
Hannah Montana
, a wildly popular TV show about a teenager named Miley Stewart who’s an ordinary schoolgirl by day but by night, disguised in a blond wig, is a hugely successful pop star known as Hannah Montana. Just as sports stars do for boys, Hannah Montana appeals to tween and teen girls’ fantasies about their ideal selves; Cyrus is unselfconscious, fun, wild, and bold—everything an insecure teenage girl would like her future self to be (plus, name me one kid who hasn’t lip-synched with a fake microphone before a bedroom mirror).

If these are the heroes we have as children, what happens when we grow up? Clearly our obsession with fame and celebrity doesn’t end in childhood. Well, in the same way that most young boys want to grow up to be superheroes and most young girls want to be princesses (though granted, there are exceptions), the ideal “future self” for most adults, male or female, is more or less universal: rich, attractive, and famous.

I’ve been asked more than once to “brand” a celebrity, the most recent being a well-known
television star. In general I use the same playbook I use with royalty, with a few crucial differences. Unlike royal families,
celebrities lack bloodlines, history, timeworn rituals, or pageantry (other than strolling the red carpet at one of the year’s countless awards ceremonies). And unlike royal families, traditional celebrities have attained fame through talent (though this is becoming less and less the case, and if you don’t believe me, watch a season or two of
Dancing with the Stars
), whether that talent is acting, singing, dancing, or athleticism (although sheer good looks don’t hurt either). Yes, our celebrities are like disposable royals in that they are wealthy, powerful, and surrounded by a squadron of agents, managers, publicists, and bodyguards.
But the most important thing they have in common is our envy. We want to
be
them. Barring that, we want to be
like
them. So I suppose it’s no surprise that advertisers and marketers pay celebrities of all stripes—from actors to athletes to reality TV stars—enormous sums of money to sell us everything from clothing to cars to breakfast cereal to sports drinks.

Most people are aware that celebrity marketing exists (after all, it’s hard to miss). But what many are unaware of is how well it’s working. According to an online survey sent to eleven thousand adults and teens across the country, the large majority of us believe that the celebrities who appear in advertising or endorsements do not—repeat,
do not—
affect our purchasing decisions. In fact, more than 80 percent of respondents claimed they would buy the products they like, regardless of whether or not there was a celebrity endorsement.

Well, guess what? I believe them. At least I believe they don’t
think
they’re being seduced or persuaded by celebrity advertising. But that’s exactly the point. As the chief industry analyst of NPD Insights,
Marshal Cohen, points out, “Sometimes it is an unseen influence that triggers the consumer’s attention or encourages a product purchase. A celebrity-associated product can be a very powerful, subliminal purchase influence. In some cases, it may even be the reason a consumer recognizes a brand or product, just based on the mere fact a celebrity is associated with it.”
⁵

Studies have also shown that when celebrities appear in advertisements or endorse products, not only do we perceive the brand message as more authentic, but it also enhances our recognition and recall of the product in question. So when we see that product (whether it’s Sarah Jessica Parker’s perfume, the Triscuits with Rachael Ray on the box, or the Nike sneaker endorsed by Rafael Nadal), we reach instinctively and often quite unconsciously for that product over the non-celebrity-branded variety.

There’s even evidence to suggest that the persuasive power of celebrity is biologically based. One Dutch study found that seeing a celebrity endorse a product—in this case a pair of shoes—actually alters a woman’s brain activity. In this fascinating study, researchers scanned twenty-four women’s brains as they viewed forty color photos of both famous and nonfamous women, all wearing the same footwear. Results showed that when the women looked at the celebrity photos, there was
heightened activity in a part of the brain associated with the feeling of affection (the medial orbitofrontal cortex), activity that was absent when the women looked at the photos of the non
celebrities.
⁶
Another recent UK study, which found that even average, ho-hum-looking celebrity models in ads produce a more intense emotional response in us than breathtakingly gorgeous noncelebrity endorsers, concluded that not only is
fame even more powerful than beauty in persuading us to buy something, but there may actually be
a dedicated area of the human brain
that’s become hardwired to respond positively to celebrity-endorsed products.
⁷

Given that humans appear to have a practically innate attraction to fame (it also helps that talk of celebrities, like the weather or sports, establishes common conversational ground among relative strangers and helps us feel a sense of belonging), I suppose it’s no surprise that over the past decade the number of “famous” people in the press has tripled. You read that right:
tripled
. Thanks to
reality TV and the Internet, both of which have provided all kinds of new (if somewhat ridiculous) avenues for celebrity, the boundaries of what it means to be “famous” have expanded beyond our wildest imaginations. Celebrities aren’t just athletes and movie stars anymore; today they include YouTube sensations (like Chris Crocker, the Britney Spears “superfan”), MySpace phenomena (think Tila Tequila), celebrity bloggers (like Perez Hilton), and, of course, reality
television personalities (too many to name), many of whom have inexplicably managed to parlay their fifteen minutes of fame into an hour, at least. Accordingly, the percentage of ads worldwide using celebrities has doubled (to roughly 17 percent) in the past decade.
⁸
And let’s not forget celebrities who are famous just for
serving
celebrities: all the doctors, dentists, plastic surgeons, real estate agents, chefs, bloggers, fashion designers, cosmeticians, hairdressers, party planners, choreographers, and florists to the stars. As Hamish Pringle writes in
Celebrity Sells
, the proportion of UK ads featuring a celebrity is now one in five, an increase of nearly 100 percent in a single decade. In the United States, this figure stands at one in four.
⁹

It’s not just actors, rock stars, and basketball players, like it used to be in the old days of celebrity marketing. Today’s product sponsors and spokespeople include talk show hosts (Kelly Ripa for Electrolux), TV chefs (Gordon Ramsay for Gordon’s Gin), former boxers (George
Foreman hawking his best-selling grill), politicians (Bob Dole for Viagra), business moguls (Twitter cofounder Biz Stone for Stoli vodka), celebrity spawn (Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley’s daughter Alexa Ray Joel for Prell), and home wreckers (golfer Tiger Woods’s alleged mistresses for the auction site
Bidhere.com
).

As you’re about to read, companies and marketers not only recognize that the boundaries of fame are expanding, they are coming up with all kinds of sneaky and underhanded new ways of exploiting our obsession with this new breed of celebrity to the fullest.
That’s
what makes celebrities such a powerful hidden persuader.

J
ust so we’re all on the same page, let’s define a celebrity as a symbol or an icon who possesses and represents a variety of desirable attributes to which many of us aspire. It could be beauty, charm, sex appeal, glamour, coolness, suaveness, outrageousness, musicianship, or athleticism—you name it. When I talk about
celebrity-driven marketing or advertising, I’m not talking about celebrities simply lending their names to a brand or slapping their faces on an ad or package. Of course, these tactics do work, but it goes deeper than that. I’m talking about a more subtle psychological maneuver whereby we as consumers are duped into believing that a celebrity has almost alchemically transposed his or her attributes onto a food, a drink, an automobile, a perfume, a face cream, a luggage brand, a credit card, and so forth, in a process so seamless that we’re subconsciously persuaded that by purchasing said product we are essentially purchasing a piece of the celebrity.

To many of us, celebrities are living the dream. Each time we pick up a gossip magazine or watch an awards show, we’re instantly seduced by the red carpets, $10,000 dresses, attractive spouses, perfect complexions, Fifth Avenue penthouses, and beachfront Malibu estates. During insecure economic times, celebrities’ lives appear especially idyllic, seemingly untouched by the everyday troubles and responsibilities that mark most of our days (interestingly,
Peggy Orenstein writes that the princess craze escalated during the recent recession).
I’ll bet Julia Roberts
doesn’t have to take out a second mortgage
, we think sourly.
Why can’t my life be that easy?
Well, buy Julia’s brand of lipstick, or perhaps a handbag, advertisers imply, and it can be.

If this sounds overly simplistic or as though perhaps I’m not giving consumers enough credit, think again. An interesting study carried out by researchers at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Canada’s University of Waterloo found that even fleeting exposure to an established brand—like Apple or Coke—can actually cause us to
take on the behaviors
championed or represented by those brands.
¹⁰
For example, just being exposed to an Apple logo, a brand widely associated with creativity, made people think more imaginatively. So, since celebrities are fabulous, can’t exposure to their brands cause some of that same fabulousness to rub off on us, too?

There’s no question that slathering on a movie star–endorsed face cream, perfume, or eye shadow makes us feel that much closer to our favorite celebrity and everything about that celebrity we envy. We carry him or her with us all day. And in turn, we adopt his or her values and attributes, too—his or her swagger, attitude, talent, individuality, coolness, or allure. In short, in effect we
become
that celebrity—in the deeper recesses of our brains, at least.

Wear the same
Dolce & Gabbana makeup Scarlett Johansson wears, and you can become as sultry and beautiful as Scarlett is. Buy a house that bears Fergie’s provenance, however tenuous (e.g., she lived two blocks over, once), and you can look out onto views Fergie’s eyes once scanned. Spritz on Jennifer Lopez’s or Halle Berry’s perfume, and you can smell as irresistible as they do, and so on. This may sound a little extreme, maybe even hard to believe. But in fact it’s a common psychological phenomenon known as transference, a term that refers to our tendency to subconsciously transplant our feelings about some person or thing onto another.

Ever try the
South Beach Diet? Named for a glamorous, art deco Miami neighborhood and created by Dr.
Arthur Agatston, a Miami cardiologist, it’s an eating plan designed to help you lose weight by eliminating cravings for sugar and refined starches. Anyway, you probably would never have heard of the book, which was published in 2003 by Rodale Press, if something incredible hadn’t happened.

When former president
Bill Clinton, renowned for his love of fast food, announced in late 2004 he was waiting to undergo heart bypass surgery, he made reference in interviews to losing weight on the South Beach Diet.
¹¹
And not only that, he told the press, but
Hillary Clinton was on it, too. Suddenly, sales of the book went through the roof, and today, the South Beach Diet is not only one of the best-known diets in the United States (perhaps second only to Atkins), the book has sold more than five million copies.
¹²

This seemingly mundane episode highlights exactly why celebrity is such a powerful persuader. By buying
The South Beach Diet
, consumers were able to share the eating habits of one of the most famous and powerful political couples in American history. As an added bonus, they could even shed excess pounds of their own along the way. Whatever your politics, whatever your values, I’m betting that the Clintons embody
some
attribute to which you aspire. Power. Brains. Charisma. Charm. Determination. Plus, studies have found food to be a powerful emotional connector. So if we sample, say, the recipe for chicken puttanesca that Bill Clinton favors, it literally makes us feel closer to the former president, just as when we wear Michael Jordan’s sneakers and feel the same bounce to our step, we imagine we can play just like him. Or when we wear Kate Moss’s Calvin Klein underwear and feel how it must feel against her hips, we imagine ourselves as sultry and seductive as she is. Or when eating Campbell’s Chunky soup, we can feel as mighty as Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb—and picture the fans cheering for us as we stride onto an (imaginary) field.

Rationally, we know this is foolish and delusional. But emotionally? That’s another matter.

T
o better understand just how companies prey on this fundamental aspect of our psychology, let’s look at
Vitaminwater, a brand (now owned by Coke) that would be nothing without celebrities. A few years back, the marketers of Vitaminwater came up with a very clever plan. Why not give celebrities shares in the company in return for endorsing the
brand? This shrewd arrangement accomplished two things. First, it got Vitaminwater an all-star team of celebrity endorsers (including rapper
50 Cent, who’s made a fortune from the shares he owns in the company) fairly cheaply. Second, and perhaps more important, now that these celebrities had some stake in the company, it gave them the motivation to position themselves on camera, whenever possible, sipping the sugary drink. Most recently,
Ellen DeGeneres conducted a live commercial for noncaloric Vitaminwater Zero, right in the middle of her popular TV talk show. After taking a few sips, Ellen, or rather, a very athletic stand-in, did backflips across the stage to show how much energy the stuff gave her. Quite an endorsement indeed.