Are celebrities good brand ambassadors for cell phones?

Featured Debate 3

A few days ago, an article ran on ABC News all about the new trend of using celebrities to...well...pimp cell phones.  I guess since they've been used to promote sports drinks, shoes, underwear, and everything else, why not phones?  Here's a little something from the article by Elizabeth Woyke:

The video for Usher's latest single, "Love in This Club," begins like any other: The singer sits alone in an ambiguous place with moody lighting. Suddenly, Usher reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Sony Ericsson W350....Motorola has used brand ambassadors for about two years. The celebrities "help elevate and build credibility for the Motorola brand and products," says Jeremy Dale, vice president of marketing for Motorola Mobile Devices.

What do you think?  Are celebs useful marketing tools?  Would you be more or less inclined to buy a phone if it was involved in some fancy red carpet marketing?  And just because I'm curious...what celeb might actually get you thinking a phone is the cat's meow?

Celebs often are willing (or unwilling) product placement tools.  One time I saw a Daily Mail (UK) shot of Britney Spears during one of her many personal blunder events holding a Verizon enV.  I wasn't the only one laughing at the time that Britney Spears and I were using the same phone, so the phones celebrities are just holding in a candid shot are going to be noticed.  And I'd bet that more than one teenager made a product request to their parental units based on those photos.

As examples (and warning, these are gossip pages as such may have NSFW materials), here she is with her Blackberry.  Here she is with her enV .  Here is Mylie Cyrus with what looks like a Verizon LG Voyager.  And another one.  And this isn't even "red carpet" marketing... these are more believable because the celebrities are using these devices in non-staged, "real life" situations.  If Verizon paid Mylie Cyrus to say "I can't do without my Voyager" they'd overtake the iPhone in a heartbeat :)

Celebrities will always be used as marketing devices. I'm sure they don't mind since they end up either getting paid for it or get the item for free. It will work with most of the masses, but this type of stuff doesn't sell to the cell phone nut who cares more about specs and funtionality.

With India emerging as what Forbes calls 'the global capital of celebrity cell phone promotions', three Bollywood stars - Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan - figure in its list of "Ten Celebs and Their Cells".

"Though the practice permeates the US, Europe and East Asia, India is the global capital of celebrity cell phone promotions," said the US business magazine, with cell phones beginning to rival cosmetics and fashion in their pursuit of celebrity star power.

[Read the rest at the Economic Times]

Haha...oh Bollywood.