Four Factors (Plus One) Driving Celebrity Endorsements

• Author: Weston Anson
• Pages: 215-225

215

Four Factors (Plus

One) Driving Celebrity

Endorsements

As a byproduct of all the research that we have looked at in the preceding chapters,

we also came to some key conclusions as to factors that are most important in driv-

ing successful celebrity endorsements. Generally, these really come down to four key

factors—plus one, as referred to in the heading above. Those four factors are the level

of celebrity, the level of endorsement, the level of use, and the level of connection. As

you will see below, we’ve analyzed these factors. Subsequently, we’ve applied them to

a number of athlete endorsement contracts, and in the section below you will find mini

case studies using the application of these factors.

Finally, there is one other key factor—and that is that there must be a lack of

negative publicity. Celebrities can be notorious. They can be the subject of enormous

amounts of buzz and Twitter activity. But there is that line across which a company

as a user of their rights of publicity doesn’t want them to cross. It is an invisible line

between notorious and negative publicity—and hard to define—but we all know when

it has been crossed.

And as we move deeper into this chapter we will look at case studies. However, our

predictive value equation remains the same: Persona (C + T) + (P × G) = Value. And

so it remains: context, time, product, and geography, combined with the personality

involved, will lead you to a value prediction prior to entering negotiations.

CHAPTER 14

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