Familiarity may breed contempt in some circles but in advertising, it creates confidence. Celebrities and famous people get paid well to tout products in media ads. You see familiar faces frequently giving personal testimonials in television commercials. Not only do these well-known names and faces strike recognition in the minds and hearts of listeners, they add credibility along with a comfortable friendly feeling.

Renowned companies such as Walt Disney go even a step further by using recognizable voices of stars to create interest in cartoon characters. So why do big companies pay big bucks to create familiarity in advertising or even in entertainment? Because it sells products.

The same principal applies to press releases that also are used as sales tools to sell ideas or products. That’s why whenever we legitimately can, in our professional press releases, we name-drop everything from celebrity names to household names of Fortune 500 companies to popular TV shows. You can too and we’re going to show you how. Keep reading.

To give you some concrete examples, let’s look at three press releases we’ve written and released successfully in the last several months. The first is an article announcing a new Web site for plastic surgeons. We name drop in the title, usually the best place to grab the reader’s attention: USA Today Article Features Plastic Surgeons on the Web Who Give More than Face Value. The psychology here is obvious. Most everyone has read or heard of one of the country’s leading weekday newspapers so the element of credibility is established early.

In writing another release for the same Web Site, we touted the well-known news show, Good Morning, America, which featured the unique site on a segment of its show. Our press release headline read, Good Morning America Spotlights Cosmetic Surgery Sought Out on the Internet.

The third example features a musical artist’s new album. ‘Lil Black’ is not nearly as well known as the musical legend with whom he shared a duet, Platinum country legend, Willie Nelson. We entitled the release, Lil Black Releases New Album “On the Road Again” with Willie Nelson Duet. We go on to drop Willie Nelson’s name a few more times in the body of the press release, creating credibility through association.

In another press release we wrote for ‘Lil Black,’ we linked his name with late-night comedian, Jay Leno, and his popular TV show. Also mentioned first in the title, we wrote, Jay Leno Gives a Nod to ‘Lil’ Black’s Music on the Tonight Show.

We did a press release for a small but growing electronic components firm who did work for some pretty big-time customers through its subsidiaries. We used that leverage again in the press release, drawing the reader in first with the heading; Pacific Micro-Tech Becomes a Major Supplier of Electronic Components for such Companies as IBM, Compaq, Cisco, and Lucent Technologies.

So be a namedropper in your press releases to increase customer confidence and credibility to your product.