Every day, it seems that more and more companies are plastering celebrity faces on their products as a marketing scheme. What’s more troubling, however, is that it’s working.
Millennials love buying things that are associated with someone famous. ‘The Rock Clock’ app, for example, is way more successful as an app associated with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, as opposed to just a regular alarm clock app.
Other products, like the Kylie Jenner, lipstick can sell for outrageous prices, while other cheaper products are the exact same thing, just without Jenner’s face on it.
What it all comes down to is social media. Celebrities advertise products on social media and as a result, consumers give in. We’re all very aware that buying these products will not automatically make us exactly like the celebrity that they’re associated with, yet we still buy them.
The ultimate question is: why are university aged people so eager to spend more money on products that are endorsed by famous people? Is it that we want to be them? Is it that we want the attention that comes with owning expensive things? Or is it that we genuinely believe that these products are better than their less expensive counterparts.
On social media, the obsession with how many ‘likes’ we can get on a photo is getting a little outrageous.
Right now, fame is the most accessible it has ever been. Justin Bieber, once just an average kid living in Southern Ontario, was discovered through social media. Are we so obsessed with being ‘Instagram famous’ that we’ll spend big bucks on products just to prove to everyone else that we own them?