"endorsements" news and stories

Endorsements are usually left for top-tier athletes and movie stars, but now chefs are in the mix too, endorsing things like stock pots, muffin tins and...automobiles? Yup. Thomas Keller, chef-owner of the revered French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, has signed on with BMW to enlist a fleet of the company's new ActiveHybrid 7 car (priced at $102,300), for the restaurant's new concierge service, reports Bloomberg.

The partnership is also being honored with a BMW-inspired menu at the restaurant, featuring a Four Story Farm apple-fed pork loin with bratwurst, braised red cabbage, apple dumplings and grain mustard sauce. It's German, get it?

While the restaurant-automobile deal is new, it isn't entirely out of left field -- the French Laundry and BMW share a similar (well-to-do) clientele. "Our guests at the French Laundry are people who have BMWs or are looking at BMWs," says Keller, as reported by Bloomberg, while BMW is vying for the top spot against Lexus, which "remained the sales leader through August," above BMW and Mercedes, Bloomberg notes.

Plus, Keller does have a couple in his garage -- a 5-Series wagon for daily use, and a 1978 BMW 320i, the first car he ever owned, which he lovingly restored four years ago.

Hollywood has endorsed products for decades: cigarettes, perfume, hair color, facial products, and now wine. According to Wine Enthusiast west coast editor Steve Heimoff, everyone from Paris Hilton to Wayne Gretzky and Brett Favre are hawking their own wine brands. (Hilton's Prosecco comes in three fruit flavors, no less.)

I'll admit I am sometimes sucked in by celebrity brands. As Eli Portnoy, a branding strategist interviewed in a New York Times article about celebrity endorsements, said, we're just a gullible generation who likes to live vicariously through the beautiful people. (It's not just this generation, of course: my five-year-old daughter can spot a Hannah Montana product from 20 feet away, and she'll pick Barbie toothpaste over SpongeBob SquarePants toothpaste regardless of flavor.)

A beautiful celebrity can sell me anti-aging cream, but when it comes to wine, I'm strictly a what's-in-the-bottle girl. I don't care whose picture is on the label or who is being paid big bucks to move it off the shelves, if it's a good wine at a good price. Generally, the more money put into the making of the wine and the less put into marketing, the better for my palate and pocketbook.

Yet Nielson reports that the celebrity wine market is growing, with Phoenix and Los Angeles leading the celeb-obsessed masses. It's true that wine-buying can be a confusing and intimidating process, and if you don't know exactly what you're looking for and you see Brett Favre's sweet mug on the bottle it might make a better adventure than an unknown brand.

Are you more or less likely to buy a bottle of celebrity wine, and why?