Information Cascade and Celebrity Endorsement
Celebrities; the ultimate influencers. Belle Delphine sold out on $30 bottles of her own bath water, while Kylie Jenner got people to start a GoFundme to help her reach a net worth of $1 billion. What gives celebrities the power to be the gatekeepers of our opinions and are there some behaviors we wouldn’t adopt for the celebrities we idolize? By analyzing our social networks and assigning each celebrity threshold values, we can determine what it takes for a celebrity to influence our actions.
The power of celebrities to sway opinions comes from sheer numbers. Each celebrity has millions of people following them, but they are not following all of these people back. If a celebrity adopts a behavior then they are more likely to influence all of the people following them than they are to be influenced by their followers. No matter the threshold, there is always a higher probability that celebrities will be influencers more than they will be influenced. Not only does the existence of celebrities belie the point that people’s opinions are malleable, but it means that celebrities themselves must be steadfast in the presentation of their actions in order to successfully influence their followers. In terms of a network; celebrity clusters have a higher density than the density of their followers, therefore ideas originating with celebrities are more easily able to achieve full cascades than ideas starting with their followers.
The influence of a celebrity however, has a natural limit. Celebrity influence is largely dependent on the sphere that celebrities occupy socially. If there is a certain musician we follow, their opinion will sway the choices that people make musically but that influence may not extend to spheres such as politics. As a prime example: Taylor Swift is incredibly popular in the music industry, but her endorsement of Democratic candidate for Senate Phil Bredesen failed to help him win his election. Within conventional understanding, Taylor Swift’s influence over her legion of fans, especially fans in states that listen to country music, should have been able to sway the vote in Bredesen’s favor. Yet an Emerson College poll showed that only 11.7% of voters were swayed by her decision to endorse Bredesen. If we were to translate Swift’s influence into the threshold model of networking effects, the threshold value that Swift exerts over a network of people would be less of a constant and more of a function. For example, within a network of the people of Tennessee, Swift would induce a threshold of q = 3/4 – (1/2)*p(x) where p(x) is the value associated with her opinion in a specific social context. For music, her opinion is coveted therefore p(x) = 1 so q = 1/4. In politics where her opinion is less impactful p(x) = 1/2 so q = 2/4. Lower threshold values create a greater chance for a full cascade since more people are willing to adopt an idea, but the willingness to adopt an idea varies depending on the value of the idea. The value of the idea a celebrity presents depends on their sphere of influence.
While celebrities are powerful, their opinions are not compulsory. While celebrities can influence music or apparel decisions, their take on other issues like politics can be less impactful.