Opening the latest Vogue or GQ, readers are flooded with images of Uma Thurman, Matthew McConaughey, and Lindsey Lohan telling you that their product makes you a star or is what the new hip thing. But in all reality, is this an effective way to advertise anymore?

As a college student, most of these types of items are out of reach and otherwise, the celeb is not someone I would like to associate myself with. What happened to the plain Jane model, why does every product need to be paired with a certain Hollywood star? If anything, the fact that stars like Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt get paid millions of dollars to be in a 30 second ad and endorse a product turns me off and makes me think that the company has run out of creativity choosing the overused celeb endorsement. Campaigns that are clever (e.g. the Truth campaign, iPod dancing people) are few and far between. It’s a fine line between projecting an image of cool by using a celeb and reflecting that it is simply something that a normal person would never look good in.

With all the computer technology that now allows a billboard or ad to literally change a person’s appearance to be more ‘appealing’, how can a person trust an ad in general? (Check out the transformation of a model from before makeup to billboard at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=v3YvvFbsj94) Do advertising campaigns ever think of the societal impact they can create in the minds of their target market? Is Mischa Barton really the best example of a normal young adult for a clothing line?

Basically, celebrity endorsements show laziness or create unreal views of how the ‘normal’ person should look like. Most people don’t find them realistic; yes, I wish I had lips like Angelina Jolie and a butt like Jennifer Lopez, but that isn’t real. What happened to the creativity seen in the Levi’s commercials in the mid 90s or cool Propel fitness water ads of people appearing from drops of water? Companies need to bring the ad campaigns back to reality and give people some fresh ideas to inspire new product consumption rather than the surrealism of a celebrity image.

| Generation-Y wants, Gen-Y ideas, Marketing to college students, Marketing to young women, Voice of the customer | Email Article | Share on Facebook | del.icio.us | digg this

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