Smiling for Dollars

By Christine Lennon/Los Angeles

HOLLYWOOD IS SO inextricably linked to our cultural ideals of beauty and glamour that it's no mystery why a cosmetics company would want to hitch its wagon to a star. Louise Brooks' bob kept hairstylists in business in the 1930s. Betty Grable's legs inadvertently sold the first disposable razors marketed to women, after World War II. It was only a matter of time before actors realized the potential profits behind being such successful marketing tools for beauty brands, and before long, Judy Garland and Joan Crawford signed on to appear in magazine advertisements for Max Factor in the '30s and '40s. Although Farrah Fawcett sold untold amounts of Wella Balsam conditioner in the '70s and L'Oreal has had a revolving army of actors proclaiming "Because I'm worth it" for four decades, the cachet of the beauty endorsement had been on the wane since the late '80s and early '90s. Models supplanted actors as the "faces" of brands, and celebrities were forced to skulk off to foreign markets like Japan's to fulfill lucrative endorsement contracts under the radar. But a quick glance at a women's magazine in 2006 reveals that there is no more shame in the celebrity-endorsement game.

"The explosion of the tabloid press and the Internet has made the general public kind of insatiable" when it comes to celebrities, says John Demsey, president of Estee Lauder. "People want a sense of familiarity with the people they look up to these days."

And familiarity they've got, thanks to the staggering success of the tabloids. Instead of the escapist "insert yourself here" print ads and commercials featuring the (relatively) blank canvas of a model, we're met with a face so familiar that we know not only the box-office stats of her last movie but also the names of her children and which coffee chain she prefers. And given that the financial stakes are so high--with Oscar winners demanding beauty contracts worth up to $12 million a pop--the question is, Is she really worth it?

"The answer is yes. She is worth it if she connects to what the brand is about," says Demsey, citing Lauder's relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow (who signed with the brand in 2005 for several million) as an example of a good fit. "But there is something that happens. It commoditizes things when everything looks the same. They lose their uniqueness. That's why the selection of the celebrity and how they're presented make such a difference."

There are legitimate reasons stars are signing up to shill mascara and moisturizer in such numbers. First, the embarrassment factor has disappeared. "Ten years ago, celebrities didn't think this was a good career decision. They thought it detracted from their cachet," says Scott Beattie, chairman and CEO of Elizabeth Arden. "When we signed Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2002, she was one of the first prominent celebrities to sign to a beauty brand. Now it seems stars see an opportunity [with beauty advertisements] to present themselves to the public in a more controlled way than the tabloids do. As a result, the paparazzi images become less of a commodity. In the past, there was resistance because it was viewed as overexposure. Now it's accepted."

Second, endorsing beauty products sets up a new avenue for income. For recording artists, who have taken an economic hit from lagging music-industry sales, a hefty contract is a coup--extra exposure that may help fill the seats on their next tour. And a lucrative beauty contract can allow an actress like Revlon's Julianne Moore, a fixture on the independent-film circuit, to choose satisfying roles in low-budget films by compensating for the financial hit.

"If someone is deciding to take a little time off, scale back, have children, it can fit very well into their 'portfolio of me,'" says Martha Nelson, managing editor of the People Group at Time Inc., publishers of PEOPLE magazine (a sister publication of TIME STYLE & DESIGN). "Uma Thurman took time out for a while when she had a few contracts [including one with Lancime]. It was when she had very young children. It's a nice little income stream. And if it works out perfectly, it's also an enhancement. The level of photography for some of the campaigns really moved the needle. In the more memorable campaigns, it really works to build the brand and the celebrity."

Although Zeta-Jones has been getting a lot of attention--not all of it positive--for her whopping contracts with T-Mobile and Elizabeth Arden, Arden's top brass insists she's worth every penny. And if exposure and a paycheck are what Zeta-Jones is after, then she may be better off in an Arden ad than in The Legend of Zorro.

Says Beattie: "Her classic glamour and formal elegance really fit with what we do. She's Welsh, but many people think she's Latin American or southern European, so she has an extremely wide appeal. Because she started on the stage, singing and dancing, she's engaging in front of crowds, and she has a genuine affinity for our products. It doesn't hurt or help us that she's in the T-Mobile ads."

Chanel's U.S. president, Maureen Chiquet, admits that banking on a celebrity for celebrity's sake can be a risky venture. Although the brand has had contractual relationships with stars since the '50s (Suzy Parker, Catherine Deneuve, Ali McGraw, Candice Bergen and Carole Bouquet), its Nicole Kidman--Baz Luhrmann No. 5 ad surpasses any single-ad commitment to date. Kidman's reported $4 million-to-$5 million contract was meager compared with the total budget, which some estimates put at more than $40 million.

"When you're banking on a celebrity as uniquely a celebrity, when everybody knows about their private lives, you always run the risk of the brand and the celebrity not being in synch," Chiquet says. "But the No. 5 ad was like going to a movie. Nicole was playing a character in a story."

"Charlize is re-creating the Marilyn Monroe image in those Christian Dior ads, and Chanel's Nicole Kidman ad is like a mini Moulin Rouge. They're playing characters, which is why these examples work," says Raul Martinez, CEO and creative director of AR Media. "As long as the concept is on brand, you're O.K. And we've seen what happens when it doesn't work."

There are the stories of companies quickly canceling their deals with Kate Moss when her cocaine scandal broke. And the Angelina Jolie--St. John relationship (for which the actress made $12 million) is the one most cited as an unsuccessful match. It warranted a "What went wrong?" story in the New York Times suggesting that the artsy black-and-white photos of a prone Jolie alienated St. John's conservative customer base. Although St. John is an apparel brand, the incident represents what can happen when an image upgrade isn't consistent with the brand and loyal customers feel abandoned by the extreme change.

Licensed fragrances are one way to ensure more image control and power for stars: Jennifer Lopez's fragrance, Glow, rakes in more than $100 million a year for Coty, which has just launched a scent linked to Desperate Housewives, Forbidden Fruit--either a stroke of marketing genius or a sure sign of the apocalypse. Elizabeth Arden, which has turned an enormous profit on the bulletproof Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds fragrance, introduced Britney Spears' scent, Curious--the No. 1 fragrance launch in 2004-05--and plans to present new products from Hilary Duff and, in an interesting turn, Danielle Steel. Sarah Jessica Parker, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump and Sean (Diddy) Combs also have their own celebrity scents.

The drawback for consumers, aside from celeb fatigue, is that they miss out on some of the fun of discovering a small new brand through an unpaid plug in a magazine from their favorite starlet, like those that MAC cosmetics and Stila experienced in the 1990s. It's no surprise that a nod from a star who receives no compensation beyond a bag of freebie products has a more meaningful impact.

"Whenever people ask me, 'Do these ads work? Are they worth it?'" says Jonah Bloom, editor of Advertising Age magazine, "without trying to sit on the fence, I say there are very few major advertisers who don't measure what they do very carefully. They're spending hundreds of millions, and if you see them repeating these ads, they're working.

"But from a personal point of view, do I think that in this day and age, a celebrity endorsement is the most effective means of marketing and advertising when savvy consumers know it's paid for? Absolutely not," he adds. "It's a quick and easy way to get people's attention, but it's becoming somewhat redundant. You need to use a celebrity very cleverly, or people are going to tune out. People don't hold these icons in such high regard anymore. Whoever's on American Idol or the MySpace.com kid next door, that's who's famous these days."

No doubt an American Idol three-fragrance deal can't be far behind.