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

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.