[filoleg]

> Any celebrity should familiarise themselves with the companies and products they endorse.

There is a difference between endorsing a product and acting in an ad for a product. The latter is an acted out sketch.

To be ultra-pedantic, one can same the same (just in a different way) for paid endorsements. But I hope the factual difference between the two is obvious enough to not need further explanation.

[lawtalkinghuman]

It is neither an endorsement nor an ad. It is a music video.

Now, Nokia could have been paying her to use their phone during the music video - product placement is a thing, and you can see the brand logo in the shot. But I suspect if they were, Nokia's brand reps probably wouldn't have wanted a shot of a popular R&B singer trying to text from a spreadsheet and would have made sure the shot looked better to protect their brand.

If it's not Nokia she's "endorsing", then presumably it's Excel. That fails on the basis that she probably wouldn't have been using Excel on the phone. As noted in jgc's blog post, it's likely the built-in spreadsheet software in Symbian. Either way, it isn't distinctly Excel - it's a generic spreadsheet app with no particular visual distinctiveness that would pick it out as Excel. People only say it's Excel because that's the spreadsheet they're most familiar with.

(Incidentally, I'm all for ensuring celebrities who do paid endorsements are doing so responsibly. There ought to be some consequences for the public figures who used their fame to push cryptoscams including Tom Brady, Matt Damon, Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian etc. if only so it prompts their agents to think twice and do some due diligence in the future.)

[filoleg]

> It is neither an endorsement nor an ad. It is a music video. Now, Nokia could have been paying her to use their phone during the music video - product placement is a thing, and you can see the brand logo in the shot.

I believe it is a fairly clear example of product placement, which is a form of advertisement. Like, when I see Andrew Garfield playing the role of Spiderman and having shots of him using Bing in those movies, there is no way I could consider it anything but product placement/ad.

Sure, there are less clear-cut edge cases in music, such as rappers namedropping luxury brands like LV, Ferrari, Rolex, etc., but at this point it is a part of the identity of the genre.

But overall, I think it is pretty obvious that when a brand/logo gets prominently featured in media such as movies, music videos, etc., it is for product placement purposes. And in cases when it isn't, taking it as a personal endorsement is kind of silly. For me, personal endorsement is cleanly defined as using and/or recommending products explicitly, outside of "fictional" media you produce (e.g., MKBHD reviewing tech products is not "fictional" media, so for him the endorsement would often come from within the media he produces).

[gmt2027]

I do not believe the line is so clear cut for a recognisable face. Brands seek out these celebrities and pay a premium for the aura. The endorsement is implicit.

Consider that the relationship works both ways, the celebrity's own brand is tarnished by involvement with a product hit by scandal. See the celebrities that promoted FTX as an example. It is in their own interest to do some due diligence.

Conversely, the ads would be dropped if the celebrity actor became toxic. If Kelly Rowland made Kanye-style comments about Nazis or Jews, the ad would be buried. Are Kevin Spacey ads still airing?

The entire celebrity/influencer marketing system intentionally exploits a failure mode of human cognitive bias for profit. Transactional endorsements are morally bankrupt. A family member or friend that blindly recommended a product or service for pay would lose respect for that breach of trust. Celebrities that people respect should be held to the same or higher standards.

Consider this, if John Carmack regularly did ads playing a generic software engineer at BigCo and it turned out he didn't even know what the products were, would this community hold him in the same high regard?

[flohofwoe]

Ads uncovered as exploitation scheme, news at 11 !!

Or as the old capitalist saying goes: We know they are telling us bullshit, they know they are telling us bullshit, they know we know they are telling us bullshit, we know they know we know they are telling us bullshit, but we are still buying their product ;)