If anyone was considering paying Kim Kardashian to endorse their product, maybe don’t. Fashionista is reporting that the efficacy of celebrity endorsements is not only waning, but, more often than not, those endorsements can actually have a negative effect on consumer approval — and Kim is the riskiest investment of them all.
Conducted by the marketing and research firm, Spotted, the reports breaks down the myriad problems facing celebrity endorsers and the brands that employ them, finding “that more than half of the fashion and retail industry’s endorsements carry a risk score of 50 or above.”
The study assessed that “risk score” by considering things like “inappropriate or offensive behavior, divisive political views and scandal, as well as how recently these factors occurred, recovery (or damage control) and the likelihood that these risks will happen again in the future,” and because doing Dumb Shit — like rationalizing a significant other’s objectively offensive opinions or publicly defending a racist makeup artist’s racist behavior — checks the required boxes, Kim’s score landed in the 100th percentile of Spotted’s findings.
But she wasn’t the only one with consumer approval issues. The study also found that Kendall Jenner (people really will never forget that Pepsi ad) and Hailey Baldwin were fairly toxic, and that “more than 75 percent of all fashion and retail endorsement deals result in low consumer approval.”
To be fair, however, blame shouldn’t be placed entirely on the celebrities. As Fashionista noted, “retail brands are still pretty clueless when it comes to aligning with the best famous face,“ and because they’re so clueless, those alignments are “generally inconsistent,” leading to “a large opportunity for backlash once a partnership goes public.”
You can read more about it at Fashionista.
