• Business Week, Thursday, February 9, 2006 11:46 AM

According to Business Week's "Girl Improved" column, a celebrity endorser can do a lot more harm than good for marketers trying to reach young women.  The column is written by the young women from 3iYing--a market and design strategy firm that specializes in marketing to girls ages 15 to 25. They warn that what they call "celebrity-ism" is one of the biggest mistakes being made in the 21st-century girl market. "Celebrity-ism happens when you lose faith in your ability to win a girl on your own merits," they write. "You convince yourself that you need a celebrity to be somebody, to be valuable, and to get attention. As this insecurity grows, you stop building up your own individual brand identity and choose to hide behind the images of famous people instead."  They say girls view celebrity endorsements as fabricated marketing stunts unrelated to a celebrity's true feeling about a product. "We also know that celebrities are paid good money to promote the product, which creates a little thing called a 'conflict of interest.'" This disqualifies an endorsements as valid, they say.

Read the whole story at Business Week »