ven though the coverage of the Michael Jackson trial shows Britain to be as celebrity-obsessed as ever, the number of ads using stars to sell brands has fallen sharply in the country in the past five years. New research has also shown that viewers respond to celebrity endorsement but only if they are pushing a worthwhile product.

Britain ranks only in the middle of the international pecking order of countries ranked according to their proportion of celebrity ads, said Millward Brown, which analyses 500 concepts and finished ads each year. While the airwaves are seemingly full of stars such as (actor, writer and raconteur) Stephen Fry praising Twinings Tea, (actor/model) Joanna Lumley exhorting that "you don�t have to be posh to be privileged", and even (a dominant �90s character player) Kathy Burke as the voice of Ski Yogurt, the proportion of TV commercials featuring celebrities slid in the country from 21 per cent of ads in 2000 to 13 per cent this year.... more