The Ethics of Endorsements

We’ve spoken in this space before about celebrity endorsements – movie stars and professional athletes being paid huge amounts of money to publicly state that they use products they’ve never actually be in the same ZIP code with, let alone used. Some of these are vaguely plausible in nature – Michael Jordan really did wear the Nike shoes named in his honor, although we are justified in questioning whether he would have done so without the very lucrative contract he received in return – while others are completely absurd – Jennifer Lopez didn’t actually drive the new Fiat convertible, let alone drive it through the neighborhood in New York that she claims is the source of her spiritual energy. But while we can probably agree that such ads are annoying as an insult to our intelligence, it is still worth asking if the practice is unethical as well. I thought we should take a closer look…

On the one hand, it’s highly unlikely that anyone who has been exposed to electronic media all of his or her life actually believes that any given celebrity actually uses any specific product, regardless of whether that celebrity is featured in the advertising of the product. It is just barely possible that very young children or very simple-minded consumers might actually believe that they should purchase a product because the commercial implies that an individual of whom they think highly uses that product, but for the most part a paid endorsement will be seen as an advertising gimmick, just like any other. Unless we have some reason to believe that the use of the endorsement has an inherently negative effect on the end user (the company is paying so much for the endorsement that it has to raise the price of the product to a burdensome degree, for example), the use of such promotions can’t really be considered unethical in itself…

On the other hand, there is no question that the use of a celebrity spokesperson is an attempt to associate the qualities of that individual with the product being promoted, or that this association is sometimes without basis. Robert Wagner is not a certified financial advisor, and thus lends only charisma and gravitas to commercials about reverse mortgages, not any guarantee of fiscal soundness; Wilfred Brimley is not a medical doctor and can’t therefore actually attest to the health value of Quaker Oats, and so on. This will occasionally backfire on the advertisers – as in the case where James Garner had to have bypass surgery shortly after becoming the spokesman for the American Beef Council – but even when it doesn’t, it is an attempt to endow a product with qualities it would not otherwise have. The classic case is tobacco products, which have traditionally be associated with cool, rugged or sophisticated individuals (depending on the brand and the era) rather than lung cancer – an association which contributes to 400,000 deaths each year, and thus can’t be described as exactly ethical…

In the long run, of course, people are going to make whatever purchase decisions and lifestyle choices they want to make, based on whatever values they use for such decisions, and people who would purchase a product they do not need (or can’t survive using) because a beloved or respected celebrity told them to probably won’t have survived childhood (what with cartoon characters telling them to play with high explosives and such). The real question is whether we as businesspeople have an ethical responsibility to provide correct and complete product information and allow consumers to make their own decisions solely on the merits of the product, or if we have a responsibility to our stockholders, employees, vendors, and other stakeholders to achieve the highest possible volume of sales, even if that means implying that a famous celebrity routinely uses a product that he or she has actually never even seen…

It’s worth thinking about…