At the beginning of the year Blackberry parted ways with its Global Creative Director Alicia Keys. That’s right, you read correctly. For those of you who didn’t know exactly a year before her departure the Grammy award winning R&B singer-songwriter was appointed in that role, overseeing their biggest loss of a billion dollars in the second quarter (and early predictions show a $4.4 billion loss for the 3rd quarter of 2013). Most people are aware that this role was nothing more than brand endorsement and that it’s highly unlikely that the real creative, sat working in their studio, would need sign off from the Empire State of Mind singer at every turn. However it does beg the question of exactly how the boards of directors were expecting this partnership to turn out. After a stop-start beginning that included a controversial tweet sent from her iPhone, Alicia Keys began her new role. During her time at Blackberry Ms. Keys was responsible for their ‘Keep Moving’ project that brought together musicians, writers and athletes and allowed fans of those celebrities to propose a project that they can collaborate on. Other than this there is nothing else that is worthy of mention during the year-long partnership that saw her make a rumoured seven figure sum before ‘moving on’ herself.

Here is a list of 5 other celebrities who took on important roles within well-known corporations:

1. Will.I.Am – Intel

Quite recently Will I Am of Black Eyed Peas fame was appointed as ‘Director of Creative Innovation’ at Intel. What that entails is anyone’s best guess but according to Intel his role at the microprocessor corporation included developing new technologies, music and in technology advocacy. Out of the three William has only produced music. A song by the name of ‘Geekin’ that name-drops almost every tech corporation out there including, you guessed it, Intel (which is immediately followed by their iconic chime playing in the background). If Intel had hired him to include their name in his song then this would have been a job well done. However why waste precious dollars on someone who probably has no idea about the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit graphics? According to their press release “Will.I.Am is a prime example of how we want to convey and deliver the Intel experience. It’s imperative that Intel and our innovations are kept in front of the global youth culture that embraces new devices and new forms of communication and entertainment.”

2. Beyonce – Pepsi

Pepsi announced it’s partnership deal with singer-songwriter Beyonce Knowles last year. Many people complained that the two were a very mismatched pair. Whilst Beyonce, known for her attractive figure, wouldn’t encourage drinking an unhealthy product like Pepsi. The partnership however was made more clear when it was revealed in her contract (estimated $50 Million!) that in exchange for endorsing the product in her music videos and commercials at Superbowl, Pepsi would fund Beyonce’s creative projects. This could range from anything like photo shoots to special events.

3. Ashton Kutcher – Lenovo

Of all appointments this is one that makes the least amount of sense. Lenovo known for their excellence in computer hardware and electronics have hired actor Ashton Kutcher as a product engineer. The actor well known for playing the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in the biopic titled ‘Jobs’ is set to team up with engineers from Lenovo to develop their tablet products. Lenovo said in a press release “Ashton will help us break new ground by challenging assumptions, bringing new perspective and contributing his technical expertise to Yoga Tablet and other devices.” To those who are aware of Steve Jobs’ role at Apple, can see the connection here. It sounds like his job there is primarily created to rally the troops like Steve Jobs once did for Apple. It’s a desperate move by Lenovo to bring in an actor who played a visionary rather than hire an actual visionary.

4. Sarah Jessica Parker – Halston

This is another example of hiring someone because they’ve played a similar role on the big screen. Sarah Jessica Parker, who is well known for playing fashionista Carrie Bradshaw in HBO’s Sex and the City, was hired by Halston Heritage as President and Creative Director of their diffusion line. The designer label, who were at the time going through financial difficulties, decided to give it one final roll of the dice in this desperate attempt to attract customers from the hit HBO show’s fan base. Unfortunately after a rocky relationship with CEO Bonnie Takhar (who was ousted from her position only months later) and a series of failed fashion lines Halston decided not to renew her contract.

5. Lady Gaga – Polaroid

Back in 2010 Polaroid partnered with Lady Gaga and appointed her as Creative Director for a special range of sunglasses. The Grey Line GL20. These glasses had the ability to shot pictures and even share them. The end product however was quite underwhelming. The glasses had limited vision, meaning you could only see from the top of them and the design wasn’t exactly ground breaking either. Much to her credit though Lady Gaga is one of the few people on this list who was actually involved every step of the way in this partnership from discussion to design. Coming in 3-4 times a week rather than twice a year. However three years later and with a 0 search result match on Amazon perhaps that level of involvement wasn’t such a great idea after all.

The trend of effortlessly handing out titles like Creative Director to celebrities has become so common that it has lost all of its meaning and any sense of achievement towards the real creative who earned that title through years of excellence. Moreover it suppresses any real creativity as any aspiring designer would be overlooked for a similar position in order to make room for a less qualified (but more well known to the public eye) figure. Not to mention the job losses that would have to occur to compensate for the out-of-this-world wage said celebrity would demand.

Hakim Shujaee is a Creative Thinker and Designer at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk