History Main / AppealToWealth

Claiming that a position is correct because the rich or famous support it. This is the basis behind {{Celebrity Endorsement}}s, especially when the celebrity's claim to fame is not relevant to the issue. See ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney and ColbertBump.

Compare AppealToAuthority.
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!!Examples

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[[folder: Advertising ]]

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] all to hell and back by a Sprite commercial that had NBA player Grant Hill doing the standard "Sprite is what I drink when my thirst really needs quenching" shtick while pictures of him holding fistfuls of cash appeared in the corner, with accompanying cash register sounds. The final screen said, "Drink Sprite because you like it. Not because an athlete says he does." This was used to wind down the "Grant Hill Drinks Sprite" ad campaign and kickoff the "Image is Nothing. Thirst Is Everything. Obey Your Thirst." campaign
** Ironically, the "Obey Your Thirst" campaign slowly began to play Appeal to Wealth straight, with a small statue character named Thirst fighting celebrities to get to Sprite first.

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[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* {{Parodied}} in a ''Kokopelli and Company'' strip from ''Magazine/MuseMagazine'' (referencing the cover story's psychology of advertising topic). Kokopelli convinces Feather to take an unfinished "Xboxx" gadget from Chad by rattling off a bunch of celebrities who she lies have bought them. Feather is so excited by having a gadget popular with celebrities that it makes Koko want one, too.
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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* {{Lampshaded}} on ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'':
-->'''Tracy''': Jenna, we're the most important people here, right?\\
'''Jenna''': Well of course, Tracy. We're actors. If we didn't exist, how would people know who to vote for?

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[[folder: Theater ]]

* ''Theatre/ReeferMadnessTheMusical'' gives us a one-two punch of AppealToAuthority and this trope. A sadistic propagandist is challenged about his absurd claims about marijuana by one of the parents watching the [[ShowWithinAShow film within a film]] about marijuana's "evils." The propagandist points out that his view is supported by Mr. William Randolph Hearst, who is both very wealthy and matriculated to Harvard. He then scores a hat trick by throwing in the AdHominem by pointing out the parent never went to college and does not know the word matriculate, then dismissing the parent out of hand. Finally, for the grand slam, he throws in an AppealToFear with another personal attack, suggesting the parent is unAmerican and that the others should report his behavior, especially in light of his "views."

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Marge was trying to collect signatures for a petition with limited success... until Mr. Burns signed.

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[[folder: Real Life ]]

* The link between vaccines and autism [[note]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies#Autism_controversies Which has no credible evidence of existing]]. [[/note]] gained much of its popularity because Creator/JennyMcCarthy endorsed it. Who, obviously, is a former Playboy Playmate, not a pharmacologist or psychiatrist.
* This accusation is often leveled at any celebrity who endorses a politician during election season. A lot of people today embrace the inverse: if someone from Hollywood said it, it must be bullshit. That is equally fallacious.
* A variation is arguing that price is directly proportional to how good something is; the "YouGetWhatYouPayFor" argument usually takes the form "X costs more than Y, therefore X is superior in every way to Y." This is not true; for example, a Motorola Aura costs six times more than a Blackberry Curve but does not have a full keyboard, and a $2500 Volvo 245 station wagon makes a better town car that a $2 million [=McLaren=] F1.
** An example for smaller purchases: multiple articles on China have described factories producing common items such as computer cords, and putting them in different packaging with different labels. The exact same object is sold in computer stores worldwide for multiple different prices (and under the labels of multiple different companies), depending on packaging. People will fallaciously assume that if something is more expensive, it must be higher-quality.
*** Please note: This does not mean that electronics that look the same yet are of vastly different prices will always just be the same product with different labels. Sometimes the cheaper one really is a ShoddyKnockoffProduct and will not give you the same value as the more expensive one. Without research, you can't really tell if this is the case, or the other one.
** This fallacy extends deep into human psychology. Scientific studies have shown that if people are given two different glasses of wine, but told that one is far more expensive than than the other, they will [[ExpensiveGlassOfCrap tend to describe the "more expensive" wine as better]]. Moreover, if you have the people connected to brain scans while doing the experiment, different parts of their brain will light up for the two different glasses, despite the wines being identical.

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* {{Parodied}} in a ''Kokopelli and Company'' strip from ''Magazine/{{Muse}}'' magazine (referencing the cover story's psychology of advertising topic). Kokopelli convinces Feather to take an unfinished "Xboxx" gadget from Chad by rattling off a bunch of celebrities who she lies have bought them. Feather is so excited by having a gadget popular with celebrities that it makes Koko want one, too.

* The link between vaccines and autism [[note]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies#Autism_controversies Which has no credible evidence of existing]]. [[/note]] gained much of its popularity because Creator/JennyMcCarthy endorsed it. Who, obviously, is a former playmate, not a pharmacologist or psychiatrist.

* ''Theatre/ReeferMadnessTheMusical'' gives us a one-two punch of AppealToAuthority and AppealToWealth. A sadistic propagandist is challenged about his absurd claims about marijuana by one of the parents watching the [[ShowWithinAShow film within a film]] about marijuana's "evils." The propagandist points out that his view is supported by Mr. William Randolph Hearst, who is both very wealthy and matriculated to Harvard. He then scores a hat trick by throwing in the AdHominem by pointing out the parent never went to college and does not know the word matriculate, then dismissing the parent out of hand. Finally, for the grand slam, he throws in an AppealToFear with another personal attack, suggesting the parent is unAmerican and that the others should report his behavior, especially in light of his "views."

* The link between vaccines and autism [[note]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies#Autism_controversies Which has no credible evidence of existing]]. [[/note]] gained much of its popularity because [=Jenny McCarthy=] endorsed it. Who, obviously, is a former playmate, not a pharmacologist or psychiatrist.