TIGER MADE ME BUY IT
The Tiger Woods car crash, with marital prelude, heard 'round the world, should make us rethink the place in our culture of celebrity endorsements.
They would be wrong even if every celebrity endorser was a saint who never tarnished his image even a drop, much less the tsunami of shame currently engulfing the greatest golfer ever.
They are wrong because the price of the product to people struggling to make ends meet is inflated by the millions, sometimes hundreds of millions dollars paid to celebrities to smile and say "buy this and you can be like me". Other than reducing the purchasing power of people who pay these bloated salaries to bask in a tiny beam of the celebrity's glow, they add no value to the product, the purchaser or society, whatsoever.
I admired Michael Jordan for his ability to put a ball in a hoop, as meaningless as that talent was for the betterment of society, as much as I admire the similar meaningless gift Tiger possesses to put a ball in a hole. Although the payment to both for their talents seems obscene, one cannot underestimate how willingly ordinary folks will fund these obscene salaries to be entertained.
But Michael and Tiger and their legion of fellow celebrity endorsers should leave it on the court or the course or the movie screen and let the rest of us mere mortals create our own identity without having to buy theirs.
Also published in the Glen Ellyn News, December 9, 2009 and the Chicago Tribune, December 14
They would be wrong even if every celebrity endorser was a saint who never tarnished his image even a drop, much less the tsunami of shame currently engulfing the greatest golfer ever.
They are wrong because the price of the product to people struggling to make ends meet is inflated by the millions, sometimes hundreds of millions dollars paid to celebrities to smile and say "buy this and you can be like me". Other than reducing the purchasing power of people who pay these bloated salaries to bask in a tiny beam of the celebrity's glow, they add no value to the product, the purchaser or society, whatsoever.
I admired Michael Jordan for his ability to put a ball in a hoop, as meaningless as that talent was for the betterment of society, as much as I admire the similar meaningless gift Tiger possesses to put a ball in a hole. Although the payment to both for their talents seems obscene, one cannot underestimate how willingly ordinary folks will fund these obscene salaries to be entertained.
But Michael and Tiger and their legion of fellow celebrity endorsers should leave it on the court or the course or the movie screen and let the rest of us mere mortals create our own identity without having to buy theirs.
Also published in the Glen Ellyn News, December 9, 2009 and the Chicago Tribune, December 14
posted by Walt Zlotow at 5:03 PM
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