Lately, hardly a day goes by at Marketing Daily without a press release on some celebrity-designed product crossing our desks. Not just a celebrity endorsement, mind you–that good old-fashioned “We paid this movie star big bucks so we could slap her picture on the box and have her shoot three commercials”–these deals imply creative collaboration and actual celebrity input.

Lots of them make sense to us, and always have, pairing a celebrity’s area of expertise with a related product–Rachael Ray’s cookware, for example, or Tony Hawk’s skateboards.

But many just evoke a disconnect, and seem destined for the “70% off!” rack. Like pop star Avril Lavigne, who just signed up with Kohl’s for a new line of juniors clothing, and who told Newsweek: “I actually am the designer. I try everything on and approve it all.” (That’s funny–we thought designers did something with sketches, scissors and swatches and so forth.)   Read more

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