Do celebrities have to use the products they hawk?
I don’t mean like Michael J Fox drinking Pepsi. One could not expect him not to drink a Coke if that is all the resturant had.
I mean like Chuck Norris and his exercise machine? Or Cher and her beauty products
I imagine celebs will get plenty of free product of whatever they endorse. While they might not use the product they endorse, I believe the product they endorse has to be something they could reasonably be expected to use. I think there’s a law or regulation relating to this because of a commercial where Broadway Joe Namath was pimping women’s stockings.
I would imagine it would depend on their contract. Since Nike paid Lebron James a bizillion dollars to wear their shoes, I would imagine that they would be pissed if he showed up for his debut game wearing Addidas. On the other hand, Nike payed Tiger Woods a bizillion dollars to use their golf stuff, and he recently switched back to his old Titleist stuff, basically slapping Nike in the face. All Nike could do was eat crow and say that they would try to make clubs to make him happy. Here is an article: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/030728/6/u2sv.html
I recall Michael Jackson publicly stating that he would never drink Pepsi, and not just because they set his hair on fire…
Anybody believe Wilt Chamerlain really drove a VW Beetle?
It is interesting that the National Association of Securities Dealers has some odd laws on how financial companies can use celebrity endorsments. Celebrities may be used to endorse an advisor or a mutual fund company. They are not allowed, however to state or imply that they use the services of the company they are endorsing.
If you watch commercials carefully it becomes like the prohibition against drinking beer in a commercial. They dance around the issue of saying they use the services of the company they are endorsing.
I’m sure they get free product but I find it VERY HARD to believe that Heather Locklear colors her locks with a $6 box of haircoloring. Somehow I don’t envision her coloring her own hair every 6 weeks.
If you REALLY listen to the commercials they are often worded that the product is great but doesn’t suggest that the celebrity uses it. Cindy Crawford and the new hair coloring commercial (with her two sons in it) comes to mind. And why doesn’t Cindy cut those boys hair? They look like ragamuffin girls!
Wow - didn’t know that about Tiger Woods. You’d think it would be written into the endorsement contract.
A big endorsement flop was a pain reliever Datril™ - endorsed by John Wayne. This was in the mid-1970’s and I believe they gave him $500,000 for it. Needless to say, no one associated Datril™ with John Wayne.
I was being facetious before, obviously. But occasionally, just occasionally, a celebrity is called to task for claims she/she has made in advertisements. Typically, what’s at issue is NOT whether the celeb actually uses the product being endorsed, but whether he/she is making false claims on behalf of the product.
That is, the government doesn’'t care if Bill Cosby really likes Jell-o pudding, or if Jason Alexander really eats at KFC. Even if I could prove that Bill Cosby thinks Jell-o pudding tastes like raw sewage, the FTC isn’t going to go after him for appearing in a commercial saying it’s yummy.
But if a celebrity makes false factual claims about a product, the FTC can and sometimes will take legal action. And the celeb MAY take a fall, depending on whether he/she is posing as an expert on the subject.
Good example: Steve Garvey, former MVP first baseman of the Dodgers, got into some trouble over an infomercial he appeared in. He was sued for $11 million by the FTC (ultimately, courts ruled that Garvey didn’t have to pay it). The facts are here:
Garvey was pitching a drug called a “fat trapper.” Supposedly, if you took a “fat trapper pill,” you could then eat all the ice cream fried chicken and potato chips you wanted without gaining weight.
Now, that would strike most of us as an utterly bogus claim, and it’s doubtful Garvey really believed what he was saying on behalf of this product. But the court sided with him, saying he was an athlete, not a doctor, and couldn’t be expected to know all the medical facts.
Now, my hunch is (and this is only a hunch) that the court would have ruled differently if the celeb in question had been, say, Richard Simmons- someone who’s always posed as an authority on health and fitness.
What Astorian brought up reminds me of a commercial I couldn’t believe I was hearing. A Howard Stern show personality did a radio commercial for some crap called Trim Spa. In the text of the ad he said something like “Trim Spa is unique and patented by the US Government. That means the government has tested it and knows how effective it is!”.
I would assume that either he and/or the company would be liable for such an idiotic statement.
…yeh, but, those kids are gorgeous. And, so is mom. Ms. Crawford, in spite of her beauty, or, mayby it adds to it, has prominent ears that stick out from her head. It seems , if you pay attention to the ad, her kids inherited the same feature.