Investment ads 'endorsed' by celebrities

PauletteH

Any ad featuring any well-known personality is almost certainly a scam. Natwest have compiled a league table of the most ab-used names. Dragon's Den Peter Jones tops the list, closely followed by Sir David Attenborough. Other celebrities appearing on the list include well-known business leaders and popular TV personalities, including, Piers Morgan, Jeff Bezos, Martin Lewis, and Bradley Walsh. Martin Lewis dropped to fifth in the table this year but continues to be used in a high volume of cases, despite him being very vocal that he would never endorse an investment in this way.

https://www.natwestgroup.com/news-and-insights/news-room/press-releases/financial-capability-and-learning/2023/may/dragons-den-star-exploited-by-scam-ad-criminals.html

boingy

Poor Martin, only making fifth. He needs to up his profile a bit. 

And I'm amused that anyone might trust anything Piers Morgan says!

Malthusian

Rising star Ed Sheeran is one to watch.

Martin Lewis dropped to fifth in the table this year but continues to be used in a high volume of cases, despite him being very vocal that he would never endorse an investment in this way.

But I saw Martin Lewis advertising the Bitcoin Quantum AI Hyper Armour Trimming Make Money Now System, and if the investment was good enough to make him to change his mind about endorsements, it must be really really good!

Natwest have compiled a league table of the most ab-used names.

To be very pedantic, the league table actually shows the biggest amounts lost by a single customer for a given celebrity, nothing to do with how frequently they appear. Which is kind of disappointing, but on the other hand, nobody would want NatWest PR officers to spend all day clicking scam ads and noting down which celebrity is used (which isn't good for anyone's health).

Malthusian

More of a US thing, but it is worth noting that even genuine celebrity endorsements of investments are likely to be scams.

TBC15

I’m sticking with Gandhi’s recommendations and disregard the naysayers.

tacpot12

If celebrities knew anything about investments they would work in Investment Banking and not the entertainment industry! You have been warned. 

Stubod

....note noted anything by Phil Scoffield yet..   

John464

The most blatant one I can think of is multi-millionaire Harry Rednapp hired to promote a fake charity
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/08/caitlyn-jenner-harry-redknapp-accept-cash-for-supporting-fake-charity
.. and still promoting gambling
Gary Lineker has come in for some criticism for advertising junk food (crisps) but Lineker draws the line at promoting gambling
Yet Rednapp is still a celebrity hired by the BBC

Malthusian

John464 said:

The most blatant one I can think of is multi-millionaire Harry Rednapp hired to promote a fake charity
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/08/caitlyn-jenner-harry-redknapp-accept-cash-for-supporting-fake-charity
.. and still promoting gambling

Crypto as well. I don't get the sting though. The celebrities were willing to take money to promote a product? Um... yes, well done? (They should of course disclose that they are paid, but the lack of #ad hashtags doesn't seem to justify the tone of outrage.)
Charities make billions a year, celebrities are as entitled to be paid for their work for them as the fundraisers on the phonelines or the CEO.

John464

Malthusian said:

John464 said:

The most blatant one I can think of is multi-millionaire Harry Rednapp hired to promote a fake charity
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/08/caitlyn-jenner-harry-redknapp-accept-cash-for-supporting-fake-charity
.. and still promoting gambling

Crypto as well. I don't get the sting though. The celebrities were willing to take money to promote a product? Um... yes, well done? (They should of course disclose that they are paid, but the lack of #ad hashtags doesn't seem to justify the tone of outrage.)
Charities make billions a year, celebrities are as entitled to be paid for their work for them as the fundraisers on the phonelines or the CEO.

Fundraisers on the phonelines probably need the money as their only income, Rednapp doesn't.
Gambling ruins many lives, which is why the likes of Gary Lineker have turned down £millions to promote it.
But what I find most shocking is Rednapp promoting a charity that doesn't exist.
Which shows the value of some celebrity endorsements, which is the subject of this thread.

adindas

PauletteH said:

Any ad featuring any well-known personality is almost certainly a scam. Natwest have compiled a league table of the most ab-used names. Dragon's Den Peter Jones tops the list, closely followed by Sir David Attenborough. Other celebrities appearing on the list include well-known business leaders and popular TV personalities, including, Piers Morgan, Jeff Bezos, Martin Lewis, and Bradley Walsh. Dropped to fifth in the table this year but continues to be used in a high volume of cases, despite him being very vocal that he would never endorse an investment in this way.

https://www.natwestgroup.com/news-and-insights/news-room/press-releases/financial-capability-and-learning/2023/may/dragons-den-star-exploited-by-scam-ad-criminals.html

Jeff Bezoss, Peter Jones for instance, their wealth are mainly coming from successfully managing their own business. Martin Lewis is a money saving expert, I understand he himself has never claimed to be an investment expert. Similarly to Sir David Attenborough.  Piers Morgan

All of these people are not making majority of their wealth by investing in the stock markets, ETF, Funds, picking up the right stocks, etc. Their skills are different.

You want to be Jeff Bezoss, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg you will need to be reborn as a titan, genius, has a business talent, willing to take risk in their life and enhanced with luck, It is probably doable for those who believe in reincarnation and the future development of gene editing.

IMO the common sense approach is that if you want to make make money by investing in the stock market, bond market following those named people; it is not a proper route unless you have resources, skills, talents, lucks that could be copied and is replicable to you.

If you want to make money in the stock market, Bond market, a more sensible approach is better to learn from people who have proven track records, have been successful applying their skills, strategies in the stocks/bods market and choose the style of investing suitable to you. These are examples:

Howard Marks - Distressed debt and companies
Peter Lynch - Large Diverse Growth Portfolios
Warren Buffett - Value Investing
Banjamin Graham – Father of Value Investing
Charlie Munger – Concentration
Stanley Druckenmiller - Big macro beta
Ray Dalio - Asset diversification
Michael Burry - Macro Options, shorting assets
Jim Simons – Quant (Algol trading)
Nathan Rothschild: Devoted contrarian

Follow and listen more to these guys who have a proven track records of making money in the stock money, not random people from the internet. This is not to suggest blindly following them without considering their circumstances and your circumstances.

Some people think,  you are not a billionaire, not even a millionaire, to benefit learning form these people, but keep in mind

- Those people were not born as a millionaire.

- Those people share their knowledge, their advice to ordinary investors, their stock picks in public for free in CNBC, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, CNN Finance, other reputable investing channels, sites, etc., A few of them are even writing books for advice to ordinary investors.

- Also it is rescalable. There are fractional shares / ETFs. There are percentage that could be applied as small as you would like to have.