This blog was created for Pop Culture and Critical Theory. This group page will cover different individual topics that connect together under “Lifestyle and Community.” The members of this group are Heather Mahr, Dineen Sampson, DeMarius Bryant and Kelley Finnegan. The scope of our project will cover celebrities who endorse particular products, how they endorse them, and whether they actually use them. Then we will move to political economy and the influence celebrity endorsements have on the product. Finally, the project will wrap up with connecting the body and Feminism. While our topics do seem broad and different, they all connect under lifestyle and community.
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Love your Body, you only get one
Monday, December 7th, 2009
How does this topic fit into a larger social/cultural framework?
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
From a social framework, celebrity endorsements give us something to talk about. For example, Paris Hilton’s endorsement of “The Spicy BBQ” in 2005 still has people talking about it! 
In addition, research has found that consumers are more likely to buy a product endorsed by their favorite celeb. This reflects both social and cultural values of our country.
From a cultural framework, celebrity endorsements are largely dependent on the many cultures of the world. Each endorsements reflects cultural values and aspects of that specific culture. For example, the oversexualized images of U.S. celebrity endorsements are not always appropriate or acceptable in other ares of the world.
In addition, celebrity endorsements portray the values of our culture to other countries. A study conducted by Cho & Agrusa (2007) found that the acceptance of U.S. celebrity endorsements in other countries increase the likelihood that they would buy the product. However, when the endorsement was not accepted or deemed inappropriate, the people of that country were less likely to buy the products.
What theories exist to explain this topic’s significance? Who are the academic rockstars associated with this topic?
Sunday, December 6th, 2009POPULAR CULTURE THEORIES AND THE ACADEMIC ROCK STARS ASSOCIATED WITH THESE THEORIES
Political Economy
Stuart Hall
In Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Popular,’ Stuart Hall presents two definitions of popular; the market definition and descriptive definition. In relation to popular lifestyle products of fitness and weight loss, a market definition of health trends in society would represent the masses of people who are consumed with the process of mindless consumption of celebrities endorsing the latest diet system or exercise machine. People buy the hottest exercise apparel, read the latest health magazines, and consume the newest diet fads, overall enjoying this consumption in their lives. A descriptive definition of popular health trends digs a little deeper then just the consumption of a product or process. The descriptive definition looks at what people do or have done within this popular culture. A descriptive definition of weight loss trends represents the culture and customs of the people that fully partake in maintaining a healthy way of life through nutrition and exercise. Thus, this relates to the people who view these endorsed products, such as Nutrisystem, and take action by buying the product, following the weight loss system, and establishing the importance of a healthy weight as a cultural value within their life. Understanding Hall’s definitions of popular is significant because it allows for people to see the meaning and process by which popular culture is consumed in life.
John Fiske
According to Fiske, “popularity is the measure of a cultural form’s ability to serve the desires of its consumers” (Fiske, pg. 565), thus, for a cultural commodity to be popular it needs to meet the various interests of the people amongst whom it is popular with as well as the interest of its produces. When it comes to investigating people’s popular lifestyles, such as fitness and weight loss, beer, country concerts, and tattoos, it is important to understand the ways in which these types of cultural commodities get circulated based on the diversity of text. According to Fiske there is a range of diversity within popular text and it is important to understand these types of text in order to see how they are circulated throughout our cultural economy. Fiske calls these two types of text; homogeneous text and niche text. Investigating the diversity of popular text is significant because it is important to understand the circulation of popular text amongst certain audiences, which leads to an understanding of what makes certain texts popular.
Homogeneous Text:
These types of popular text have an open nature to them, which gives them the ability to target a large audience. Homogeneous texts aim to produce a wide range of relatable narratives which are open to a large number of different interpretations. In terms of advertisements and celebrity endorsements of popular lifestyles, fitness and weight loss and beer would be considered open texts which have the ability to research out to a large and diverse audience. Fitness and weight loss commodities endorsed by celebrities, such as Kristie Ally (actress) with Jenny Craig and Dan Marino (NFL athlete) with Nutrisystem, are aired on major cable networks which aim to incorporate a large diverse audience. In addition these advertisements use relatable celebrity spokespeople, like Dan Marino (NFL athlete), Jenny McCarthy (actress), Queen Latifah (rapper/actress), and Kimberly Locke (American Idol star), in an effort to create a sense if identification with a diverse audience.
Niche Text:
Niche texts in popular culture have a closed nature to them, meaning that these types of text tend to target a specific audience demographic. Unlike homogeneous text, niche texts do not allow a lot of room for interpretation, and if one has a hard time relating to a text they will probably not enjoy it. For example, stations like Lifetime, BET, and WE air programs and advertisement that are aimed at a more specific audience. When related to advertisements and celebrity endorsements of popular lifestyles such as tattoo culture and country music entertainment, these types of popular commodities target specific range of interests that people have. For example shows like Miami Ink and stations like CMT are popular within a certain type of audience and are not necessary relatable to the masses.
Feminism
Michel Foucault
Foucault’s investigation of the relationship between power, the body and sexuality has stimulated large interest within the feminist tradition. Foucault’s asserts that the body is a site cultural construction, thus meaning that our bodies can be a site of meaning in culture. His identification of the body as a target of power leads to the feminist analysis of ones social control over a women’s mind and body. According to Foucault people are active producers of their bodies. In terms of our focus on popular lifestyle within our culture, endorsing weight loss products, beer, and tattoos all incorporate the active production of ones body. Weight loss advertisements aim to illustrate the idea that you have the power to control your body and actively produce the image that you desire. Tattoos are a means by which people produce meaning and control in their lives by establishing their bodies as the production site. Beer advertisements use the female body as a way to actively endorse the popularity of beer. These beer advertisements draw attention to the product through the means of attractive sexual women who bare their bodies in an effort to grab people’s attention. Foucault’s theory on power and actively producing the body is significant to endorsements and advertisements of things such as beer, tattoos, and weight loss because the means by which these products are advertised is based ones relationship with their body.
Susan Bordo
Bordo is a modern feminist philosopher known for her contributions in the field of cultural studies. Bordo has been considered the founder of the new interdisciplinary field of work known as ‘body studies’, which can be closely related to Foucault’s work on power, the body, and sexuality. Her work links modern consumer culture directly to the formation of ones gendered body. Bordo is especially known for her book, Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (1993). This text looks at the impact of popular culture, such as television, advertisements, and magazines, in shaping the female body. Bordo’s work on ‘body studies’ ties in with popular culture lifestyles, such as weight loss and tattoo, because they are highly based on ones body as a site for cultural production.
This topic in academic & non-academic circles
Sunday, December 6th, 2009What types of question have been asked of/answered about celebrity endorsements?
One question that has been asked of celebrity endorsements is how effective they are. A number of researches have explored this question. Lord and Petrevu discuss this question in their article Informational and Transformational Response to Celebrity Endorsement. They found that the attractiveness, trustworthiness, and perceived expertise of a celebrity all affect the public’s perception of a product or service.
Another question that has been asked is if celebrity endorsements are effective, why are they effective? Lord and Petrevu also answer this question in the same article. They employ the Elaboration Likelihood Model to explain two main modes of persuasion related to celebrity endorsements. These two modes of persuasion are the peripheral route and the central route. The peripheral route is basically a shallow mode of persuasion in that the public is persuaded by superficial celebrity images. The central route is basically the audience taking an active role in being persuaded and researches a product instead of relying on a celebrity endorsement to make their purchasing decisions.
How have celebrity endorsements been discussed in academic and non-academic circles?
Celebrity endorsements have been discussed widely in the field of Communication. The essay Political economy and cultural studies: Reconciliation or divorce? discusses celebrity endorsements from a political economy perspective. Political economy is essentially the idea that ideas are turned into commodities and have different worth in a culture (Graham, 620).
The article above is just one example of an academic discussion of celebrity endorsements. The Journal of Consumer Research is an academic journal that is dedicated to studying the perceptions of consumer audiences.
Outside of the “ivory tower” of academia, celebrity endorsements are an often discussed topic in a number of circles. Vast numbers of blogs dedicated to certain celebrities discuss celebrity endorsements. In addition to blogs about celebrities, endorsements are often the topic of non-academic blogs about Communication regulations. A number of on-line newspapers discuss celebrity endorsements as well.
What can these two types of communities learn from each other?
The academic world and non-academic world can certainly learn a lot from each other. By discussing celebrity endorsements, non-theorists could better understand why and how they are persuaded by celebrities. Those involved in the academic world can better understand the “real life” implications of the theories to which they have contributed.
How might we go about engaging and contributing to that conversation?
This blog itself is an example of how we could contribute to the discussion of celebrity endorsements in the academic and non-academic communities. Because this blog discusses Communication theory and applies these concepts heuristically, both academics and non-academics have the ability to engage in this conversation. The internet is a proper medium for this discussion because it allows for free access.
What role can/should social media play celebrity endorsements?
Sunday, December 6th, 2009Sponsored Tweets:
While Twitter has made some small gains in utilizing social media for celebrity endorsements, much improvement can be made. Social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace should be used for celebrity endorsements more. While these applications all have many ads, few of them contain celebrities. When it comes to advertising, it has been found that celebrities boost sales of products because fans identify with their favorite celebrity and, therefore, are more likely to buy a product. Almost all celebrities use Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. While they endorse themselves on these sites, it would be beneficial for them to endorse products as well.
Above is a video of sponsoring via Twitter – where Twitter has made small gains in adding celebrity endorsements to their sites.
What questions still remain/what studies can we design to illuminate the topic even further?
Saturday, December 5th, 2009Questions Remaining
The main tenants of celebrity endorsement are the following: attractiveness of the celebrity, credibility of the celebrity and meaning transfer between the celebrity and the brand. These tenants leave room for many questions to be posed as far as celebrity endorsement goes.
This principle states that an attractive endorser will have a positive impact on the endorsement. The endorser should be attractive to the target audience in certain aspects like physical appearance, intellectual capabilities, athletic competence, and lifestyle. It has been proved that an endorser that appears attractive as defined above has a grater chance of enhancing the memory of the brand that he/she endorses. The attractiveness of the celebrity leaves the question of does the company have a responsibility to present a healthy, average appealing person to the public? Celebrities have long played a part in what the consumer models their personal life after. From the diets celebrities endorse, the clothing brands/style they wear, and even up to the type of pets they have. The question posed is should they be responsible for presenting someone who is healthy in all aspects. Presenting someone who is anorexic, promiscuous or having drug problems culturally says it’s okay to do these things and you can still be successful.
The credibility of the celebrity is everything when it comes down to endorsing a product. Credibility is defined here as the celebrities’ perceived expertise and trustworthiness. As celebrity endorsements act as an external cue that enable consumers to sift through the tremendous brand clutter in the market, the credibility factor of the celebrity greatly influences the acceptance with consumers. If the celebrity generates no interest, the product more than likely will have little success with the celebrity endorsement. For instance, a C-list celebrity endorsing a product that is already struggling is not likely to see any increase in sales revenue due to the lack of credibility that celebrity has. On the other hand, a crappy product, i.e. the Snuggie, could see a large increase in sales if they placed the right celebrity with the product. The only problem is, few celebrities are willing to risk their credibility endorsing a product such as the Snuggie. The question i pose for this is to what degree do we associate the celebrity with that product. If something negative is discovered around a product, hires cheap child labor, how long is that attached to the celebrity and vise versa. If a celebrity endorses a product in their prime and then does something stupid, dogfighting, murder, what are the ramifications for a company sticking by their endorse?
This principle states that the success of the brand-celebrity collaboration heavily depends on the compatibility between the brand and the celebrity in terms of identity, personality, positioning in the market vis-à-vis competitors, and lifestyle. When a brand signs on a celebrity, these are some of the compatibility factors that have to exist for the brand to leverage the maximum from that collaboration. My question is do we expect celebrities to actually use all the products they endorse? For instance, a high payed celebrity like Tiger Woods endorses Buick, but do we actually expect him to drive a car like that? If celebrities are seen not having brand loyalty, i.e. not wearing who endorses them, should it cause contractual feuds. Michael Jordan’s son cost his school their contract with Adidas for refusing to wear the Adidas provided by his school.
Further Research
Most of the research surrounding celebrity endorsement has been done on the level of success a celebrity has while endorsing a product, but surprisingly, little has been done in terms of the gender of the celebrity and gender of the target audience member might have on the consumer response to celebrity endorsement. Ohanian (1991) reported that there was no significant main effects of gender in her study of the impact of gender on consumers’ perceptions of a celebrity’s attractiveness, trustworthiness, or expertise, nor on the likelihood of purchasing a product that was endorsed by a celebrity. She however, didn’t match up celebrities based on their area of specialty. For example male athletes were not matched against female athletes or male musicians were not matched against female musicians. Gatorade has been one of the few companies that has encompassed male and female celebrities on an equal platform, and has had success in the marketing of their new Gatorade “G’. Their commercial features NBA stars Dwayne Wade, Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett, but also includes female athletes like Mia Hamm, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. By including a broad range of popular male and female athletes, Gatorade has been successful in associating their product with men and women.
Another study that could be done to further the research on celebrity endorsement is the gender differences in response to persuasive messages. Women would probably be more apt to be persuaded by female athletes and men by male athletes. This link would explain the tenant of trustworthiness of the endorser and would also help in determining whether some products can successfully be marketed by a commercial celebrity or require a niche celebrity. Women are more apt to accept product endorsement if it included female endorsers who appeared to use the product and gain results while men were more likely to accept the product endorsement based solely on who was endorsing the product and the celebrities abilities.
Research could also be conducted on whether the celebrity endorsing a product is worth what the companies are willing to pay the celebrity. For instance, the likeliness that Tiger Woods actually drives a Buick is more than likely false. He is less than half the target age for their product, and is worth much more than the average Buick driver. The association of Tiger Woods driving a Buick is about as believable as OJ Simpson advertising a set of kitchen knives. On a political economy note, the bank-ability of a celebrity should be taken into consideration in terms of whether their bank-ability is transferable to the product they are endorsing.