Celebs slumin' but smellin' good

Maybe this happens every December and I just miss it but there seems to be a LOT of A -list celebrities in commercials this year.  This used to be such a no-no (at least on American tv).  Of course all the ads are arty looking weird perfume ads that celebrate their celebrity instead of exploiting it.  Okay, that may be a very thin, basically non-existent distinction.   The old wisdom was that doing commercials would taint the image the the personality.  Perfume ads tend to be flattering and 'stylish.'  Like a classy magazine photo shoot.  Also, since perfume is a smell which (so far) can't be presented even in HD, you never actually have to see the celeb actually use the product.  In fact perfume ads usually fall into the format of "Beautiful person looking mysterious and sexy... and then 2 seconds of a funky shaped bottle named after an adjective."  So perhaps the allowable displacement between product and personality makes it all okay.

But I do wonder if this is yet another sign of the economy going to crap.