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Celebrities as Marketing EnhancerCase Analysis of the Alternative Food Movement and “Eco-Chic” Lifestyle Advocacy

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Intelligent Decision Technologies

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 16))

Abstract

Globalisation, industrialisationand neo-liberalism have caused social inequality and environmental degradation, while increasing numbers of celebrities, particularly in entertainment industry make use of this trend to maximise their influence over the public through environmental advocacies such as “alternative” food geographies and “eco-chic” lifestyle. The purpose of this paper is to examine how far celebrities’ environmental advocacies work as a branding method of celebrities themselves.Following conceptual background discussions such as defining celebrity, types of celebrity and what “eco-chic” lifestyle means, critical assessment of the above issues takes place with a good array of empirical examples.The results indicates that celebrity advocacy is fundamentally a sort of star-driven “outside strategy” of social protest that popularises issues, enlarging the visibilities of celebrities themselves. This research has presented a new marketing trend that involves political ecology as a means of self-branding of celebrities who could be readily regarded as“products” in capitalism.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Commerce, Waseda University, Shinjuku, Japan

    Shinichiro Terasaki & Shin’ya Nagasawa

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  1. Shinichiro Terasaki
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  2. Shin’ya Nagasawa
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Information,, Production & Systems (IPS), Waseda University, Hibikino 2-7, Kitakyushu, 808-0135, Japan

    Junzo Watada

  2. Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

    Toyohide Watanabe

  3. Sellinger School of Business and, Management, Loyola University Maryland, Charles Street 4501 N, Baltimore, 21210, USA

    Gloria Phillips-Wren

  4. KES International, PO Box 2115, Shoreham-by-Sea, BN43 9AF, United Kingdom

    Robert J. Howlett

  5. , School of Electrical and Information, University of South Australia, 5095, Adelaide, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Terasaki, S., Nagasawa, S. (2012). Celebrities as Marketing EnhancerCase Analysis of the Alternative Food Movement and “Eco-Chic” Lifestyle Advocacy. In: Watada, J., Watanabe, T., Phillips-Wren, G., Howlett, R., Jain, L. (eds) Intelligent Decision Technologies. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 16. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29920-9_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29920-9_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-29919-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-29920-9

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