Celebrity Endorsements

            Ellen DeGeneres is one of the most well known, loved celebrities making her popular for different endorsements. Her funny, caring, and kind disposition are attributes that are often associated with her. This wide spread popularity has led to companies utilizing her for endorsement such as American Express, JC Penny, Vitamin Water, and CoverGirl. Ellen has been with CoverGirl since 2008 and has come to be closely known with the brand. 

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According to McCracken's meaning transfer model, the celebrities attractiveness does not properly define how well they work as an endorser, but rather the effectiveness lies within their acquired meanings (Belch, pg 190). These celebrities draw their meanings from the roles that they posses in the public eye. Through The Ellen Show, Ellen has developed a meaning of compassion, confidence and humor. Therefore according to the meaning transfer model, Ellen brings these attributes to her CoverGirl advertisements. The final stage of the transfer model is taking the meanings the celebrity brought to the product and brand, to the consumer. Utilizing Ellen in the ads displays a message of women who use the CoverGirl products are confident and successful. 

Ellen brings another level to the CoverGirl endorsement through her generosity and compassion. She has displayed this multiple times through her show, most prominently with Talia, a young girl who was aspiring makeup artist who had cancer. Ellen used her CoverGirl connection to enable Talia to become an honorary CoverGirl. These kind of actions displayed not only the compassion of Ellen, but also pushed that meaning onto CoverGirl as well.