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Those crafty marketing executives know exactly what makes us tick: they take a picture of whichever ‘celebrity’ tosspot they think is currently ‘hot’ and slap it onto the advert for whatever overpriced piece of crap they’re trying to sell and like lobotomised, star-struck automatons we scurry along to the nearest sterile, over-lit shopping centre to hand over our hard-earned cash. Well not quite. But with the tedious regularity of a vegan’s bowel movements those in charge of swollen corporate marketing budgets (cost passed on to the consumer) adhere to this tried and tested formula.

Occasionally, however, the resulting ad campaigns turn out to be forehead-slappingly ill-conceived, while others prove initially successful only to be scuppered by some external event. This often results in a ripple of consternation that threatens all parties involved. These PR faux pas don’t make our lives of endless consumption better in any way – but instead of those marketing/celebrity types all sitting around with their self-satisfied haircuts on and patting themselves on the back while they count their bonuses we get the chance to laugh at their stupidity and misfortune instead. It’s what Bill Hicks would have wanted.

Eric Clapton – Michelob
Find yourself a guitar legend, film them playing one of their hits in a moody and atmospheric setting and include plenty of classy shots of your product and, bingo: you’ve just made a stylish commercial that’s going to prove wildly successful, win awards, boost brand image and cause sales to go through the roof. Right? Well, that would be the case unless your guitar legend is battling alcoholism and your product is beer. In that case the ad would just give out all sorts of awkward messages and connotations, especially in the days before the sobering ‘drink responsibly’ caveats.

After the Michelob advert was aired in 1988 it was reported in Rolling Stone that Clapton was undergoing treatment for alcoholism during filming. The shrewd and fastidious marketing department at Anheuser-Busch, the beer’s manufacturer, consequently decided that their new spokesperson might not be the right man for the job and terminated the contract. Great job guys.

Michael Phelps – Frosted Flakes
The World’s Greatest Swimmer™ is no stranger to the world of advertising. His long-standing sponsor, Speedo, latched on to him early on in his career. But it wasn’t until his staggering performance at the 2004 Athens Olympics and his record-breaking medal tally at this year’s Games that his list of corporate sponsors and official endorsements grew exponentially to make him one of sport’s highest-earners from advertising promoting Visa, Omega, Matsunichi, PowerBar and MacDonalds among others.

Despite earning huge amounts of money and some negative press for his dubious endorsement choices, it was his decision to sign with Kellogg’s to promote their Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes (that’s Frosties for us in the UK) brands that created the biggest furore. Since American sportspersons’ traditional choice of cereal-based endorsement is the comparatively healthy Wheaties, nutritionists and pressure groups castigated Phelps for putting money before the health of a nation.

Pope Leo XIII – Mariani Wine
Sometimes celebrity endorsements only seem unsuitable in hindsight, as is most certainly the case here. Vin Mariani was a massively popular product during the mid-late nineteenth century, it could be thought of as the Coca Cola of its time. Although the drink’s success was due, in part, to the physical effects and addictive properties of one of its main ingredients – cocaine – the role of the wine’s eponymous creator, French chemist/manufacturer Angelo Mariani, must not be overlooked. For Mariani is not only accredited with introducing the West to the delights of cocaine-based tonic drinks, but also with pioneering the art of the celebrity endorsement. A big round of applause for Angelo please.

Pope Leo XIII was an avid fan of the wine – he was known to carry a Mariani-filled personal hipflask at all times, and, most significantly, he bestowed the product with a Vatican Gold Medal. Of course, he didn’t have the benefit of our knowledge of cocaine today; in his time it was a highly sought after and fashionable medicinal item rather than a controversial banned substance. And he wasn’t the only prominent figure utilised in the Mariani marketing machine – as Steven B. Karch’s A Brief History of Cocaine documents, other famous endorsers included H. G. Wells, Thomas Edison and Sandra Berhardt – but the Leo’s official Catholic Church seal of approval is considered by some to be a factor in the proliferation of the drug throughout the west during the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Whoops.

Carol Vorderman – FirstPlus
Carol Vorderman certainly knows her mathematics. In fact her favourite pastime probably involves counting the piles of cash she earned as the face of the UK’s largest debt consolidation company, FirstPlus. In a long-lasting and downright shameless exploitation of her status as respected TV personality and, notably, someone who is good with figures, she headed the FirstPlus adverts for 10 years urging cash-strapped daytime television viewers to risk their homes for some extra cash.

Mounting concerns over the financial dangers of secured loans and other such products resulted in a public outcry against celebrity endorsements fearing people were being lead into debt problems. Vorderman herself came under fire in May 2006 when the BBC aired a programme highlighting the case of two FirstPlus customers who took out a loan after seeing a Vorderman-fronted advert. Two charities, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) and Credit Action, subsequently teamed up with a financial website petitioning for her to terminate her contract with the company. Widespread press condemnation followed, but it didn’t stop there – the issue was even raised in parliament when an Early Day Motion concerning the “rising levels of secured debt, due in part to celebrity endorsement” cryptically referred to “individuals who are well known for their mathematical skills”.

Vorderman’s contract survived the public pressure however, and her regular paycheques only came to an end this August when FirstPlus closed to new customers. But don’t worry, Vorderman made plenty of money as an advocate of the culture of easy lending that lead to the credit crunch; I’m sure she won’t need a loan anytime soon.

Kate Moss – H&M, Chanel, Burberry
Kate Moss takes drugs. Shocked? Didn’t think so. What’s most surprising is that pictures of Ms Moss using her credit card for something other than an extravagant shopping spree were not published earlier.

The ‘shock revelation’ came about in 2005 when pictures from a secret video of Moss snorting cocaine were published in The Daily Mirror. The supercilious tabloid press were subsequently whipped into a rabid frenzy of finger-wagging causing concern for the many companies which used Moss as their poster girl. Some said they would stand by her despite the allegations (those of the “no such thing as bad publicity” school); but with other companies (H&M, Chanel and Burberry) Moss got dropped quicker than a diet pill at a fashion show. Despite not being officially charged for drug offences the condemnation reached dizzying levels – one subsequent report saw Moss being personally blamed by Columbia’s vice president for fuelling civil war in his country.

True to its nature, however, the inexorable marketing machine rumbled onward. Moss’s personal earnings were reported to have doubled since the coke debacle, and her new fashion collection has recently been launched in the UK high street store, Top Shop. You should probably get them while you can – next week’s revelatory pictures of Kate throwing a midget at a giant panda’s testicles whilst smoking in a designated No Smoking area may cause a rethink of their new autumn collection. Maybe.