Close-Up: Live Issue - Do celebrity endorsements still work?(Survey)

Have consumers become immune to the power of celebrity in ad campaigns?

A survey in Marketing last week revealed that one in five mothers said the sight of Victoria and David Beckham plugging something in an ad would be more likely to put them off. Only 16 per cent were prepared to admit that celebrity endorsement would persuade them to buy a product.

But despite what people may tell pollsters, many brands still seem to believe in the power of celebrity. As Christmas approaches, consumers can look forward to the Spice Girls shopping at Tesco, Take That sporting Marks & Spencer's Autograph range, and Westlife and Wendy Richard joining Joan Collins in a very crowded Post Office.

Alan Cluer is one of adland's premier celebrity fixers, cutting deals between A-list names and agencies since the early 80s. He's brought together many of advertising's most famous partnerships, including Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury's; Rowan Atkinson and Barclaycard; and Henry Kissinger and The Economist.

Cluer thinks that rather than more celebrities, we're actually seeing fewer. 'I think the internet has caused a bit of a downturn in the demand for celebrities as budgets have shifted out of TV,' he says.

The facts seem to back him up. Millward Brown has been keeping track of the proportion of ads using celebrities over the past ten years. In 2001, 17 per cent of TV ads the company was testing featured a celebrity. Last year, that fell to 8 per cent, and this year it's at 6 per cent. Peter Walshe, its global brands director, says that 'using celebrity is just one way of building brands. As budgets have tightened, the added cost of using a celebrity needs to be factored in.'

On whether celebrity ads work, though, there is no definitive answer 'When we evaluate ads across a whole range of factors, we see no significant difference between ads with celebrities and ads without,' he adds.