Celebrity endorsements.

One of my pet peeves is celebrities who don't use (and sometimes don't even believe in) the products they push. I'm sure the money for doing endorsements is great, but if I had the chance, I like to think that I'd be able to stick to my principles, and not try to use my influence to convince people to buy products that I myself don't have anything to do with.

Here's an excellent example: Martha Stewart recently unveiled her new line of scrapbooking products. Now, you would think, Martha being the generally acknowledged maven of all things crafty, that the woman would be an avid scrapbooker. Apparently, this is not so. One of the girls in my online class was actually in the audience for Martha's show... here's what she had to say about it:

Well, I'm back from the show... it actually aired live. I've never watched Martha's show so I didn't really know what to expect, but I did think she'd actually know something about what she was selling. During the scrapbooking segment, she called cardstock "construction paper," she called acrylic stamps "sticky letters," she called the acrylic block a "pounce pad" (whatever THAT is!), she called the cutting mat a "cutting board" and when asked what someone needed to get started scrapbooking she said "An album, some punches and photographs." Once the cameras stopped rolling she answered a few audience questions, one of which was how often did she scrapbook, to which she replied, "Never, I don't even put my pictures in regular photo albums." She is so out of her element with this - it's obvious that EK Success is doing all the design and everything and just slapping her name on the products to up the sales. All was not lost, however, they gave everyone in the audience a brand new HP photo printer, a carrying case, a 100 pack of photo paper, and four of the new Martha paper punches to take home - SCORE!! Oh, and the rumors are true... she is a very cold person and treated her staff quite rudely.

Wow. This is so much worse than an Olympic athlete who doesn't actually eat Wheaties, even though his picture is on the box. You would think (or at least I did) that the woman would know the proper name and function of her own products!!! Really, this is akin to calling a colander a "holey bowl," calling a wok a "skillet," and when asked what one needs to get started in cooking, replying with "a serving platter, some cookie cutters, and basic ingredients." I mean really!!!

Needless to say, you won't find any of her stuff in my scrap room. There's just too much awesome product out there from incredibly talented (and involved) designers for me to waste money on lame products pushed on me by someone who expects me to buy just because of the celebrity name that's on the packaging. Add to that the WorldCom scandal, and evidence of her true personality ("...the rumors are true... she is a very cold person and treated her staff quite rudely..."), and frankly I'm not sure that her name has such a good connotation, at least for scrapbook products!