Here's How Much Celebrities Make in the Instagram Product Placement Machine
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It probably will not surprise you to learn that your favorite beauty blogger or reality television star is almost certainly getting paid to post that perfectly lit selfie with an artfully placed tooth-whitening kit or meal replacement shake on her Instagram account. What you don’t know, really, is how much money they actually receive for those pseudo-advertisements. Jezebel has obtained detailed rates for micro- and macro-celebrities from Jenny McCarthy to Scott Disick; our reporting found a wide range of fees for posts published on Twitter, Facebook, and, most typically, Instagram.
Celebrity endorsements are nothing new, but the explosion of social media has shifted the practice into new territory. As I’ve discussed here before, advertisements posted as selfies on Instagram or Twitter usually contain no clear indication that the celebrity or personality in question has been paid to promote the product—despite the fact that, in many cases, they’re legally required to disclose exactly that. (Kim Kardashian, for example, recently got in trouble with the FDA promoting a morning sickness drug without including the side effects.)
It’s an entirely new model, and it thrives off of a gray area. When you see Kerry Washington in a Neutrogena commercial, you mostly know what’s up. For a campaign of that magnitude, there are press releases, and then there are exclusives stories based on those press releases. Vanity titles like “brand ambassador” or “creative consultant” get thrown around. In these early days of the new Instagram-Twitter publicity paradigm, we’re still learning the signals. If you see a prominently displayed coconut water in a Kardashian post in 2016, you might reasonably expect, at this point, to see a product name in her hashtags. But what exactly is she getting for such an agreement? Celebrities seem to love apps like Instagram because it helps them build some public semblance of authenticity. Is it really “worth” it to break down that mystique with a clearly sponsored post?
I’ve been curious about how much these people are actually getting paid to post a picture with a clever caption. So when I was given the opportunity to pull some exact figures, I jumped. I connected with a source who owns a company that produces a product similar to the ones often seen advertised on certain celebrity Instagram accounts. The source volunteered to reach out to various celebrity reps and inquire about their rates for social media posts about the product. The range of these numbers starts to create a picture of this new, evolving economy of the camouflaged celebrity endorsement.
We’ll get to the numbers—if you’re curious right now, just enlarge the graphic embedded in this section—but first, let’s consider the medium.
For the more major brands and actual celebrities, social media promotions appear from the outside as a part of a package deal. When you see Kerry Washington post on Instagram, for example, you can assume that, sure, she probably does like and use Neutrogena’s blush and sunscreen—but she’s also being paid millions of dollars to do so in all the various mediums.
Kerry Washington’s model, however, is now the exception to the rule. When you scroll and scroll and scroll through the B- and C-list celebrity accounts that are primarily responsible for these misleading product promotions, the advertisements are frequently blended into “authentic,” “honest” social personas.
As with all advertisements (and, honestly, most things on Instagram), these posts are plainly meant to be aspirational. Your teeth can be as white as a Real Housewife’s and your stomach as flat as Vanessa Hudgens’ if only you buy these products. It is the casualness and seamlessness of their posts—Khloe’s tea ad is posted between a candid photo with her brother and one with her niece North—that make the oblivious follower feel that this product is simply a part of the perfect daily life of this celebrity.
The main source of these posts, to generalize a bit, are reality television stars, people who at one point were much more famous than they are now, and people who have completely baffling access to the spotlight. They maintain whatever public level of interest remains in them by peddling a certain degree of openness and honesty with their fans on social media, and they’re smart enough to exploit that sense of connection in their sponsored posts. Take the Jersey Shore’s JWOWW, for example, who recently confessed her “secret” to staying fit during pregnancy: 310 Nutrition Shakes. Or consider Khloe Kardashian sharing that it’s Fit Tea, and not frequent sessions with a personal trainer, that keeps her healthy during the holiday season.
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