Celebrity Endorsements: can they help a problem product?

I recently had this email:

"I have an excellent product that I'm trying to sell. The problem is that people don't trust the product, so they don't buy it. I would like to find an organization or celebrity that would recommend this product. How do I go about doing this?"

My response:
Thank you for contacting me. We want to see your business succeed!
If it is an excellent product, then trust is included in that excellence.
If not, then it is NOT excellent, tho' it may be very good.
I don't know what the product is (you should mention that to your mentors), but let me give you an example.
McDonalds has "excellent" products: 1. it has good quality (for fast food),
2. it's FAST, which people want,
3. it has good marketing that reaches it Target Market (TM), who trust it and buy it by the BILLIONS,
4. "excellent" benefits, according to its buyers, or they wouldn't buy or trust it, regardless what health gurus say.
You can certainly find a "celebrity" to endorse your goods, but if you find someone to do it and people still don't trust it, then that lack of trust will be transferred to the celebrity. Most honest celebrities realize this and won't endorse something people don't trust. [you can find celebrities thru www.IMDB.com and, using their pay-for-use PRO version, find their management to make contact]. You must ID a celebrity that people can trust and have some reason to chain that celebrity to your product. That mental connection COULD chage people's mind about your product.
Depending on the product, you may find and org. for-profit or non-profit to help sponsor/tout the benefits of your product to their TM/ org. Again, they may not trust the product, or want to risk their reputation, so look carefully.
I could be more help, if I knew the product and why people don't trust it. It is NOT an insurmountable problem, look at Tylenol, hurt by product tampering, they turned it around, not with celebrities, but by improving the product protection. Coke had to remove New coke and re-brand Classic Coca-Cola, to recover, [the celebrity for New Coke was Bill Cosby, no less, and it didn't help.] So it is possible, but you must over come the lack of trust in the product, not just in the advertising, but also in the product itself, not just in re-naming, re-branding, but re-imagining the product in your potential client's eyes, and re-creating that trust (assuming it existed before).
Contact me if i can help you with this type of problem: dan@dancassin.com