From our pictures, it’s clear that the shop in the Westend village is hoping to pull in the punters by association with Hunt. The shop sign, The WestEnd Barber is almost dwarfed by the addendum, ‘By Barry Caesar Hunt’.  The front door is flanked by a full-length poster photograph of Hunt in his Apprentice gear to the left and a smaller one to the right.

While we enjoy Hunt’s hair today, hopefully not gone tomorrow foray into fame, we have to ask: How famous do you have to be to cash in on it? Is Barry’s name alone enough to boost the barber business?

It’s a similar marketing conundrum when faced with Dragon’s Den resident grump Gavin Duffy fronting a marketing campaign for fake tan. A product supported by Duffy in the RTE programme, TanOrganic, has had the ‘benefit’ of being endorsed by the Dragon himself in a television advert. (Mind you, the model used to showcase the product on Dragon’s Den did “keel over” during the hour-long interview, as its creator Noelle O’Connor confirmed so perhaps she wasn’t available). We have no doubt that TanOrganic is a super product and that Duffy is an astute businessman but, aesthetically, does the combination work?

Barry C Hunt might be making haircuts while the sun shines, but how much power does a Z-list celebrity endorsement actually have? We expect to see a top star like Beyonce pop her booty for perfume and soft drinks, but Mr T doing a George Foreman-lite for mini-cookers? Please, sucker.