HuffPo just ran an article on weird (and not so weird) celebrity endorsed products for Christmas. What experiences have Dopers had with such items? I can straight-up say that anything “drinkable” with the Margaritaville label on it should be avoided like the plague. Jimmy Buffett should be ashamed. OTOH, *Aviation *gin (Ryan Reynolds owns a stake in the company) is damn fine gin. Dexter Holland’s Gringo Bandito hot sauce line is pretty fly, too.
What are your experiences and recommendations?
George Foreman Grills I found good; very good. Same with Newman’s Own salad dressings.
Other than that most celeb-endorsed stuff has been average at best.
Funny thing about that article is that Sarah Jessica Parker actually thinks people* want to see her.*
I see that Tom Sellick is pimping reverse mortgages. I don’t like the idea of Magnum trying to fuck my mother.
I never buy based on celebrity endorsements. They don’t make an impact on me.
But she kinda looks like a dachshund?
Terry Bradshaw has joined Pat Boone in hawking Safe Step Tubs. “Rub a dub dub in my Safe Step Tub. Safety never felt so good.”
They have a negative impact on me.
I know that the manufacturer has spent money to pay the celebrity to endorse the product, and spent money to advertise that endorsement – thus reducing the money that was spent on quality design & construction of the product. And usually, increasing the price also.
So to me, a celebrity-endorsed product will be of lower quality & higher price than a competing product. So I avoid them whenever possible.
(The exception is products created by/owned by the celebrity or their Foundation. Such as Newman’s Own products, 100% owned by Paul Newman’s charitable Foundation. I think this started with his own recipies, but I’m not sure of that.)
When I go to Staples, the life size, cardboard cut-out of MC Hammer in full dance-pants regalia, proclaiming “Stop hammer-time” and hawking 3M Command hooks always gets a giggle out of me.
I avoid all endorsed products, especially cookware, which seems to get uniformly poor reviews. The Foreman grill is a possible exception.
Alex Trebek’s plumping for crappy Colonial Penn life insurance irks me.
Celebrity endorsements in general impress me negatively, but I may buy some celebrity-endorsed products unknowingly. Of the 39(if I counted correctly) celebrities in that linked HuffPo article I was aware of only 13 - and a couple of those were just names that I heard somehow, but didn’t know what they looked like or even why they are famous.
I keep seeing ads for an ambulance-chaser with William Shatner as the spokesman. Yeah, there’s a good reason to select a lawyer.
I doubt you’re seeing the same one as I am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwtSoaBE2ls
OTOH Rachael Ray’s Chicken Stock gets the highest ranking from America’s Test Kitchen.
Dennis Quaid’s commercials for Esurance at least acknowledge their own absurdity
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The Leonard Nimoy/Zachary Quinto Audi commercial was hilarious. Especially when Nimoy starts humming “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”.
Speaking of Star Trek actors. A while back George Takei touted SHARP’s Quattron 4-color tech used in some Aquos TVs. Complete with "Oh, my!"s.
But the 4th color (yellow) does not really expand the color palette significantly plus there are no sources that take advantage of it nor does the TV “move” colors around to produce more yellow when it should (and no more yellow when it shouldn’t).
In other words, it’s useless.
In the ~10 years since the introduction, they have not taken the TV market by storm. In fact, SHARP sold off the TV division to one Chinese company before being bought out by another.
Oh, my, my foot.