Oprah Winfrey offered her reasons for backing Barack Obama on The Larry King Show in 2007. “What he stands for, what he has proven he can stand for, what he has shown, was worth me going out on a limb for,” Winfrey said.
A 2008 study from Northwestern University assessed the impact of Winfrey’s endorsement of Obama. It showed the media star was responsible for around one million additional votes for the 44th president.
Celebrity endorsements can be tricky
But other research tells a different story.
For instance, a 2010 report from North Carolina State University found celebrity endorsements by George Clooney and Angelina Jolie did not help political candidates.
And having famous people cheerleading for your political campaign isn’t foolproof.
“It could backfire,” said Wharton School of Business professor of neuroscience, psychology, and marketing Michael Platt, the author of a 2023 study on celebrity endorsement. “Maybe it’s a celebrity that you don’t like or is not aligned with you politically.”
There’s also the potential problem of the celebrity being too famous. Platt calls this the “Vampire Effect.”
“They suck up all our attention, right?” he said. “Which means there’s less attention, less processing, that’s given to the candidate that you might be endorsing.”
The rise of fake AI celebrity endorsements
The rise of social media and deep-fakes created by artificial intelligence, such as those of Swift falsely appearing to endorse Trump, is also an issue.