Celebrities selling your product?

Consumers can identify products through their brand name, brand mark, or spokesperson.  I can see that when launching a product, that you want these items to be bold, influential, and unforgettable.

I see so many celebrities today selling different products, and I wonder if the high cost of a celebrity spokesperson is worth it.  Not only the cost, but the risk involved with having someone you can't control as the face of your product.

What do you do when the spokesperson chosen, messes up big time?

I found an article called Celebrities in Advertising are Almost Always a Big Waste of Money, and discussed is Nike's endorsement of Tiger Woods, and how in the end they spent advertising dollars addressing Tiger's "mistakes" instead of selling their products.  Ad Age the authors of the article also conducted a study and concluded that in 2010, one fifth of celebrity ads actually had a negative impact on the effectiveness of the ad.

Hopefully this means consumers are buying products based on things like:  quality, usefulness, and desire.  Not just because Tiger told them too.