The Game Of Celeb Marketing Has Changed

Filed Under: Brad Pitt Reese Witherspoon Angelina Jolie Miley Cyrus Oprah Winfrey Ellen DeGeneres Johnny Depp Will Smith Tiger Woods Morgan Freeman Business Blitz Denzel Washingto

Marketing consultant Millward Brown has created a scoring system that determines how effective a given celebrity would be at endorsements, as well as which brand would be the best fit for each celebrity.

Dubbed Cebra (Celebrity and brand combined), the scoring system works on a scale of 0-100 and weighs three factors: celebrity, buzz, and likeability.

From there, the the personality characteristics are paired with consumers' attitudes about certain brands, which leads to an indication of which celeb works best for which brand.

Millward Brown teamed with Bangor University in the U.K. to develope the measurement system based on the neurological facts about how the brain processes feelings and emotions for various brands and celebrities.

So what were the results?

Well, Will Smith and Brad Pitt tied for first, which is not at all surprising. Tiger Woods (pre-known adulterer) and Oprah came in second place. Denzel Washington scored third, while Clint Eastwood and Ellen DeGeneres tied for fourth. Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, and Angelina Jolie came in a three way tie for fifth.

The scoring system determeind that Brad Pitt's all-American quality matched nicely with Gap, Oprah would be a great mascot for Amazon.com, Will Smith would do well for Gillette and Ellen would be good for Priceline.com. Cebra suggested Clint for Chevron and Angie for Visa.

We have to say, we really think those pairings are dead on!

Others who scored well were Miley Cyrus, who was suggested for Starbucks, and Reese Witherspoon, who was paired with Target.

This is a pretty cool development in the marketing world, and it makes us wonder if a high Cebra score will becoming a bargaining chip for celebrities' agents and publicists. This could change the game!

We're sure Ungaro which they had a rating for Lindsay Lohan before hiring her.

[Image via WENN.]

Posted: December 2, 2009 at 7:31 pm