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It doesn't do much for me in terms of wanting to frequent said restaurants. Friday's is an awful chain restaurant with horrible service and food often delivered cold. Guy Fieri is not a chef I who's opinion I care a whit about, so one simply reinforces the other. Rachel Ray? Dunkin Donuts has great coffee. Her hawking it doesn't change that fact. Rocco DiSpirito hawing Butoni pasta dinners? Please.

The problem with the whole endorsement thing is that you've got crappy chefs hawking crappy products. Now if a real chef were flogging a particular product, I would actually try it. Marcella Hazan pitching for Rao's Marinara Sauce. Sure. Great chef, really, really good product. Jean-Georges says to try something, I totally would, but I don't see that happening.

Unless we speak of someone whose opinion I may value/care for, using Food Network personalities in advertising campaigns is certainly not effective as far as I am concerned. As chisai said, "you've got crappy chefs hawking crappy products" -- I do not care for Friday's or Dunkin Donuts, and clearly, I do not care that people whose opinion doesn't matter to me, have a whole series of TV ads for these places. If we stay with Food Network personalities, I would be interested in Alton Brown's recommendations or even Ina Garten's. Come to think of it, however, if Alton Brown or Ina Garten were to advertise "Red Lobster" (all right, I do not really want to believe this will ever happen), I would probably conclude with great sadness that they sold out rather than that I should pay a visit to a "Red Lobster" near me. So I guess in case of chain restaurants, my preconceived notions would take precedent over anybody else's opinion.

As far as Food Network's reputation goes, as long as they air Semi-Home made Cooking with Sandra Lee, there is very little they could do to hurt their reputation any more as far as I am concerned.

Celebrity endorsements don't mean much to me, unless I know that the celebrity has some input into how the product is made or how the business is run. Or that he/she at least believes that the product is the best of its kind. So, if Mario Batali holds up a bottle of wine and says that this wine that he personally helped bottle last time he was at the vinyard, is the perfect accompaniment to a dish of pasta with marinara sauce, I might hunt up the bottle. The Naked Chef (forgot his name -- Jamie something...duh) invented a thing called the flavor shaker, which he uses on his shows. If I wanted something like that and I trusted him, I might look into it. But if I see any one of them promote a chain restaurant, I wouldn't run out to that restaurant, because I know they've got no input. If one of them bought the chain, I might reconsider.

I generally don't care which personality is hawking which product. Generally. However, I actively hate Rachel Ray and since she's become Dunkin Donuts spokesperson I don't buy their products. Seriously. I hate her.

Here's another twist... I automatically associate the name Martha Stewart with quality goods. Why? Because so far, everything I've ever purchased with the MS name on it has turned into a wise choice. MS deep pocket sheets were the only ones to fit my bed properly; her glass replacement lid for a large pan of mine was a life saver.

This is an interesting question. I generally don't put any stock in celebrity endorsements, especially paid endorsements for some chain restaurant or mass-market product. I've made exceptions, though.

My wife and I built a new home last year. We put a ton of effort into designing the kitchen (duh!) and were looking at the usual suspects for ovens/ranges (Viking, DCS, Wolf, etc.). I saw an ad for Turbo Chef ovens with Charlie Trotter talking it up. THAT got my attention. We checked it out and ended up going that route and we don't regret it for a minute.

@alacto.......you've questioned a group of people who generally are not enamored with the food from most chain restaurants. The Food Network personalities who are hawking them are also not the most respected for their own cooking abilities, so putting the two together........sure won't inspire us to give the chain another try. One notable exception (for me) is Tyler Florence. I thought he was a wonderful cook and I was shocked and dismayed when I saw him gushing forth about a steak and onion rings for Applebee's. I may have felt differently if they were actually using one of his impressive recipes, but they were just using his pretty face and enthusiastic personality. As others have said, the few respected chefs/cooks on Food Network are probably above hawking chain restaurants. Some have restaurants of their own, like Emeril Lagasse.

"Celebrity" chefs hawking substandard restaurants is just the advertising world's way to urge the everyday joe to believe in a "haute cuisine" dining experience. It's a gimmick. Nothing new. Nothing original. It's the SAME thing as Charlie Trotter hawking stoves, just to a lower-income bracket.

That being said, there is something for getting the non-foodie masses more interested in food and inspiring them to look past the boxes of preservative-laden insta-meals in their cupboards and freezers. It at least introduces new food ideas to those who may be stuck in a culinary wasteland out by the mall, or those who lack a decent grocery store that even allows them to explore real cooking.

Oops on the prior post. It was supposed to go in the Jeff Smith thread. I have no idea how it ended up here. Sorry.

I was surprised and somewhat sad to see Tyler Florence endorse Applebee's. Their food is nothing but salted crap and I'm sure they've crapped up any recipes he purportedly created for them, too.

I think Rachel Ray would be more popular if she were less visible. I liked watching her 2 or 3 years ago before her face was EVERYWHERE. Her agent/manager/what-have-you has done a remarkable job of pimping her out- 2 or 3 shows on FN, an Oprah-backed talk show, a magazine, kitchenware, Nabisco crackers and now Dunkin' Donuts. Is she ever home?? Oh, and I forgot all the cookbooks...

A celebrity endorsement- chef or otherwise- does NOT make me run out and purchase something or frequent a certain establishment. Typically it makes me run the other way because the 'celebrity' has sold out and the company is attempting to cash in on someone else's fame as opposed to bettering their products and services.

I don't think it's a coindidence that Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri are the ones who have done endorsements. It's no surprise, their food isn't too great and they are "famous" more for their overwhelming personalities and over the top catch phrases than anything else. The endorsements don't look good for the Food Network. I would assume that Food Network fans are pretty serious foodies or people who have a genuine interest in cooking healthy meals for their families. Is it in the best interest of that kind of network to have their personalities associated with Dunkin Donuts? I don't think it is. It sometimes seem as if the Food Network is losing its credibility, but then again you'd never see someone like Ina Garten, who I respect very much, hawking items for Taco Bell.