When Celebs start hawking everything

     How much influence do some people think they have?  Why should fame automatically translate into your endorsement on products outside of your expertise knowledge?  How clueless have we turned American consumers into that people will simply buy a product because there's a familiar smiling face on it?

     I get it, I understand endorsement deals are a huge income stream for celebrities today.  Is there a teen/pop icon out there today that doesn't have their own perfume line?  As if they really have anything to do with the development of the fragrance outside of saying they do or don't like something. Better yet do girls really think Justin Bieber had anything to do with his OPI nail polish or do they even care?
     What started this entire rant was seeing Paula Deen's face on a mattress tag the other day at Big Lots.  Seems the Queen of Butter has a line through Serta.  When asked about the endorsement Ms. Deen's been quoted as saying:"The collection is all about feeling good, comfortable and getting a good night's sleep in one's home. And just like my food, I send you comfort and love from my home to yours."  REALLY, she's using her catch phrase with mattresses!!   Don't get me wrong I like Paula Deen and have turned to her recipes many times.  I also like her cookware line, and the fact that it is available at the big box stores where most of her viewers shop.  When I saw her promoting Smithfield Ham it didn't bother me one bit and I was confident that she wouldn't endorse something she wouldn't use in her kitchen.  But a mattress? I don't think she spends any more time sleeping in beds than the average person so why would I trust this endorsement?  Why does the fact that she owns a few restaurants and has taught us how to make incredible Ooey Gooey Cakes mean we should trust her endorsement on a mattress?
     There are certain endorsements we expect, sports figures with Gator-Ade, and other sports related items. But come on people just because an actor can read from a script doesn't mean we have to believe him when he tells you to get a reverse mortgage or to buy your diabetic strips online.  This also holds true with celebrity spouses.  The piece of paper that acknowledges their relationship does not mean they are now all knowing and should be given a book deal for doing what thousands of other moms already do; I was hiding vegetables into different recipes long before the Mrs. Seinfeld met her husband.

     Celebrity voice-overs don't bother me as I simply view it as another job for them, not an endorsement.  The fact the Tim Allen lends his voice to soup commercials is OK. I like trying to figure out who the actor is behind the voice for the new pick-up trucks.  I also got a kick out of Mike Rowe's parents doing a paper towel commercial as I thought it was a great tie-in to his Dirty Jobs series.  Commercials are jobs for actors.  George Clooney told James Lipton during his Actors Studio interview that he does commercials for the money which allows him to work for scale when he does movies and also that money, which is often ridiculous for a day's work.  can be fed into his charity work.
     The fact that I saw Paula's mattress at Big-Lots should have been my first clue that this endorsement didn't fair well as the line was discontinued just two years after being introduced.  I guess not all crossover endorsement deals work after all.  I have to admit I feel a bit vindicated.

Any excuse to share a George Clooney picture (from 2012 Italian Calendar)