Trust deficit

Why do we let celebs make us believe a product or service is good for us. Tobbacco, shoddily built real-estate and automobiles, terribly crafted educational and fitness offerings, gambling, ponzi schemes, steel products, sugar-laden aerated beverages, ‘functional’ health drinks, booze posing as soda, music records and bravery awards.

Celebrities have an incredibly dicey track record. They will advocate for anyone who will pay them enough. Even when they have very little expertise or competence to vouch for the thing they are being paid to advocate for.

But yet when a celeb tells you something is good for you, your mind automatically thinks this person who can hit a ball really hard or has a really pretty smile must have my best interests in mind when they’re asking me to part with my hard earned money or time.

Why we extrapolate on-screen screen charisma or on-field competence to enlightened consumer advocate baffles me.

Takeaway

It should be a red-flag for you when a company or service hires a famous person to vouch for the product or service. Celebrities have done little to earn the privilege to tell you that something is well built, well constructed, thoughtfully made, ethically sourced or suitable for your consumption. They have routinely displayed the quality of being amenable to saying or doing whatever the highest bidder demands. And there is almost no evidence that any of them actually use the products and services they vouch for.