Brands paying celebrities on Twitter to endorse their products, ethical?

According to a report on the Associated Press, companies are paying celebrities to endorse their products through Tweets on Twitter. Now, a lot of us already knew this because sometimes it is just blatantly obvious, however for us the report asks one massive question; is it ethical for a celebrity – and a role model – to endorse and sell products for brands on their Twitter page?

A few main examples we can give you of celebrities endorsing brands and companies on Twitter include rapper Snoop Dogg, who tweets about Toyota and reality TV star Khloe Kardashian who told fans how great Old Navy jeans are. Rapper Ray-J tweeted about the movie Saw 3D while Football star Terrell Owens informed his fans about a chain of hotels giving away game tickets.

Moving back to ethics, let’s narrow down a concern; are followers of a celebrity really going to be cool knowing that their celebrity would rather tweet about Toyota or Saw 3D, and get paid for it, than speak to followers? Well I for one (if I followed celebrities) wouldn’t be cool with that, however does anybody else share the same concerns here?

Of course, brands will be paying celebrities far less to tweet about products than it would cost for them to get that celebrity on to a television campaign, however the medium of Twitter is a bit different, for example; on television, I expect and know there will be adverts during intervals for a film or TV programme, however on Twitter I expect there to be more respect bearing in mind it is already spammed to death anyway. Celebrities are supposed to be role models, aren’t they?