Pitchmen the Logical, Reluctant, and Delusional

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while, the celebrity endorsement.  The idea that I will buy something simply because a famous person is talking about it.  I think I’ve identified three types of celebrities: The Logical, the Reluctant, and the Delusional.  First up, the logical celebrity endorsement as typified by Ronald Reagan and Gilbert Gottfried– both trustworthy, pitching you something that makes sense.

Gilbert Gottfried will sell you with his voice…

But then you have reluctant celebrities.  Like Uma Thurman who makes it clear in her film contracts that she will not do endorsements.  Recently Uma Thurman’s contract for her new movie Eloise in Paris has been made public in an ongoing legal dispute over the film.

The paperwork reveals Thurman’s $4.5 million salary and the agreement has a clause banning movie producers from using  Thurman’s “name or likeness” in merchandising deals for products including “tobacco, weapons, religious items, personal hygiene products, intimate apparel, porn, gambling, pet food and stomach or rectal medications.”

Its a kids movie, just how my tie-ins or promotions are you going to do with rectal medications?  This led Holly to wonder if the Uma contract covers, ” the anti-depressants that may cause constipation? Thank God the she still has the deal with the pet bed people, but the suppository people are going to be VERY disappointed.”

But there are some people who are comfortable doing rectal ads…

Lastly we come to delusional celebrities, like Lindsey Lohan.   She “thinks” she’s being portrayed as a baby, according to the NY Post Lohan, “…was left sobbing uncontrollably when she saw an E-Trade ad on Super Bowl Sunday about a ditsy, boyfriend-stealing infant named Lindsay she believed was created in her likeness, her irate mom told The NY Post.  “She said, ‘Mommy, help me. This is wrong. How can they do this?’ ” Dina Lohan said of a tearful phone call with her 23-year-old daughter after the big game.

So what is she going to do about it?  In papers filed in Monday in Nassau County, New York, the Mean Girls star claims that E*Trade’s ad featuring a ditzy, “milkaholic” baby girl named Lindsay is modeled after her and improperly invoked her “likeness, name, characterization, and personality” without permission, violating her right to privacy. Lohan is suing for $50 million in compensatory damages and an additional $50 million in exemplary damages. She also demanded that E*Trade stop running the ad.