Can We Trust Celebrity Endorsements? | Part Two

Welcome back!

Hash tags on social media. Everyone uses them or has used them to a certain extent. Influencers across any social platform however, have to be very careful in terms of what hash tags they include on their posts. A huge trend I’ve come to notice recently, particularly on Instagram, is a whole host of celebrities posting pictures of themselves endorsing various different beauty and health products. One that I see almost every day is Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins that claim to result in faster hair growth, increased hair shine and reduced hair breakage. To most who follow said celebrities, posts such as these are obvious paid endorsements, not just innocent promotions that they have decided to do out of the kindness of their hearts. That being said, a lot of the people who follow celebrities such as Kim Kardashian perhaps wont process the fact that she has essentially been paid to be nice about the brand, instead thinking that they need to buy the hair vitamins just because she uses them. This is the exact reaction that brands want as their ultimate goal through paying a celebrity a large sum of money is that it will result in thousands of sales – meaning they’ll make the endorsement fee back and then some. This is clearly a successful strategy due to the high volume of brands that implement it into their marketing plan, but a lot of the time rules are broken and guidelines aren’t followed. More often than not, celebrities forget to address the fact that they have been paid to post. Hash tags such as #spon and #ad should always be apparent but sadly this isn’t the case, resulting in consumers and followers being mislead and drawn into purchasing something they don’t necessarily need. 

An example of how the issue surrounding hash tag usage is being combatted comes through an organization called ‘truthinadvertising.org’. They fight deceptive advertising on a daily basis and feel that the use of short hash tags such as #spon and #ad is still too ambiguous for consumers. Their passion regarding this subject was made clear when Kylie Jenner was forced to edit an Instagram caption to state she was gifted a birthday home from online marketplace Airbnb instead of just saying ‘thank you’ to the brand. I do feel for celebrities in a situation like Kylie’s, as it isn’t necessarily her fault if a brand wishes to gift her something for exposure in return. That being said, I also feel that it is so important for people to know the difference between when somebody has actually bought a product or service for themselves and when they have been offered money to promote it. 

Love, Lana Skye x 

Source Credit: Refinery29, The New York Times. 

Photo Credit: Kim Kardashian Instagram, Kylie Jenner Instagram.