A powerful entity that affects our purchasing behavior are social reference groups. Specifically, I will be talking about the indirect aspirational ones. Aspirational social groups are the ones that consumers look up too and try to mimic. So that is why some companies try to associate their products with aspirational groups to increase their sales.
The product that I have in mind that seems to intensely uses this tactic, of associating their product with celebrities, to increase profits is Beats by Dr.Dre. The marketing division that is in charge of promoting these Beats products seem to focus on trying to get their product associated with many big name celebrities specifically musicians, as headphones are closely related to music. Although interestingly, Beats does not only limit the association of their products to musicians, as they are more than eager to associate their product to any celebrity such as athletes. So how exactly does Beats get themselves associated with big names. On the Beats by Dr.Dre website their is a page that is specifically shows their product being used by various celebrities http://beatsbydre.com/picsvids/Pictures.aspx. Another way of having their product associated with celebrities is that they have their product promoted in music videos 
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But is this tactic of using reference groups actually a very effective method of increasing sales? On the other side of the headphones market is Bose. For me I do not see many celebrities or musicians actively promoting Bose products, although Bose is still predominately in the headphone market. So this leaves us with the question of: will Beats be able to overtake Bose in the headphone market.