5-Step Checklist to Choose the Right Celebrity for Brand Endorsement

The Celebrity Endorsement Series is written by Billy Bones, founder of Booking Agent Info and Moda Database. This is Part 1. Read Part 2 and 3.

Working with a celebrity on an endorsement campaign is a huge step towards increasing brand recognition, allowing a brand to reach new consumers through an influential connection to someone who already captivates their attention. With the right celebrity, you’ll able to target those specific audiences most likely to listen to the celebrity’s recommendation and act on it.

If you’re ready to set up a celebrity endorsement deal but aren’t sure where to start, keep reading – you’ll find everything you need.

Firstly, having a celebrity endorse your product is valuable, but it’s not nearly as valuable as picking the right celebrity. Your ideal celebrity endorser might be the biggest name you can think of, but that isn’t always the case. Depending on your brand and your product, the right celebrity with a smaller audience can yield better returns than an A-lister who isn’t a good fit.

The questions is, how do you know if a certain celebrity is a good fit for your brand?

1. Look At Their Endorsement History

By researching a celebrity’s endorsement history, you’ll get a better idea of how they’ll be by your audience as a spokesperson. On top of that, it’ll help you figure out whether or not your brand will be well-received by their audience.

Look at the brands and products the celebrity has endorsed in the past. Ideally, it’s best to find someone who’s endorsed brands or products that are similar to yours – or even someone who has endorsed your competitors before.

2. Identify Their Interests

This is another crucial element of a successful endorsement deal: making sure your brand shares the interests of your celebrity endorser. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is this celebrity interested in or passionate about?
2. Does my brand share their interests or passions?
3. If not, does my brand address the celebrity’s interests or passions?

Asking these questions gives you two potential ways to approach the celebrity and the future campaign. Either you can leverage your brans’s shared interest with the celebrity or influencer to add authenticity to the campaign, or the celebrity can play on the fact that your product addresses their passions as a way of demonstrating its value to the average consumer.

Firstly, having a celebrity endorse your product is valuable, but it’s not nearly as valuable as picking the right celebrity.

3. Make Sure Their Audience is Right For You

It’s important to consider whether or not a celebrity’s existing audience overlaps with your target demographic. For example, if your brand specializes in cosmetics, someone like Vin Diesel isn’t likely to help you connect with the kinds of consumers you’re looking for. In addition, you also have to consider whether or not their audience is sufficient to make a big enough impact on your revenues to justify the cost of the endorsement.

4. Consider Their Audience Engagement

If you’re thinking of running a social media-based endorsement campaign, this one is crucial. No matter what network you use, a celebrity endorsement can be almost worthless if they don’t have a strong enough following.

That said, it’s not just a matter of finding the celebrity with the biggest audience. You should also make sure you pick a celebrity with a strong engagement rate (that is, comments or likes) on their posts.

For example, if a celebrity has 5 million followers but only receives 5,000 likes or comments per post or video, their engagement rate is 0.1% – not great. Ideally, you want to identity potential endorses who have an engagement rate of 0.5% or better. The more people engage on your endorser’s average posts, the more likely it is that they feel a connection to your endorser, and the more likely it is that they’ll listen to your endorser’s recommendations.

5. Look For Shared Causes or Charities

If your brand has a cause or philanthropy that it supports, see if there are any celebrities who support the same causes. A big part of ensuring a perfect fit for your campaign is looking at the celebrity’s overall public brand, not just their endorsement history. On top of that, a celebrity who supports the same causes as your brand means their endorsement will have an even greater impact – their audience will recognize their endorsement as authentic, and they’ll be more likely to try your brand for themselves.

Once you’ve identified the right celebrity for your campaign, the next thing to do is decide on the specific type of endorsement, which we will cover in part 2 of the series.

About Billy

Billy Bones is the founder of Booking Agent Info and Moda Database. Moda Database is a celebrity stylist contact list that provides businesses with the contact information for celebrity stylists, and their celebrity clients. Booking Agent Info provides you with the contact information for the official agents, managers, and publicists of celebrities.