g-Think | Issue 12 | Celebrity!

We all want a bit of it; we all have a tinge of wanting to be famous. In our celebrity-saturated and over-inflated ego-driven world it’s hard not to be impacted by individuals whose faces adorn the covers of magazines and whose pronouncements vie for our attention in the digital media. Celebrities come at us from every which way and from every lifestyle. Corporations use celebrities to endorse products, non-profits use celebrities to spread a social or environmental message and all the while celebrities get more and more exposure. Just take the example of People magazine – so successful that it earned top place on Adweek’s “hot list” of magazines for 2005. Then there’s Vanity Fair, which recently devoted an entire issue to environmental celebrity-ism, profiling everyone from Bette Middler to Goldman Sach’s Hank Paulson.

In this issue we delve into the topic of celebrity and what it means to us as consumers. We look at how celebrity plays itself into our purchasing decisions, how it affects our take on social and environmental issues and how companies and non-profits use celebrities to sell product, get a message out and enhance their profile.

Most of us are aware of the positive impact some celebrities are having on the world, whether it be championing efforts to role back global warming or helping kids suffering from cancer to lead better lives. But we also see the negative side of the celebrity phenomenon – blatant self-promotion and the transference of responsibility for many of today’s problems from us to those we believe have the wherewithal and power to effect change. There’s also the very real chance that the use of celebrities to promote issues such as environmental sustainability turns the issue into a trend that ebbs and flows according to the dictates of popular culture and media exposure.

Whatever the case, celebrity treads a very fine line and as consumers we must arm ourselves with the tools to make informed judgments about those who use their status to exert influence over us.

Of course, the celebrity phenomenon is not confined to Hollywood and the entertainment industry. An increasing number of corporate leaders are being turned into celebrities or being touted as “gurus” in their respective industries – BP’s John Browne and GE’s Jeff Immelt are just two examples. Even manufactured celebrities are being use to spread a message – witness the revival of Kermit the Frog (once a puppet now a digital creation) by automobile giant, Ford. Increasingly, celebrities are being used to sell entire lifestyles: Martha Stewart is soon to launch her own “branded” line of residences aimed at the mass-market (“it’s a good thing”) and Bono is being used by American Express to promote its new Red Card – every time you spend, a proportion goes to the Global Fund for fighting HIV/AIDS: “you don’t have to make any extra effort to make a difference.”

But there is hope on the horizon when no less a celebrity than the Queen of England reportedly expressed her “grave concerns over the White House’s stance on global warming.” (Vanity Fair, May 2006, p203). She is not amused by rising temperatures and the British tabloids have had a field day.