International celebrities: worldwide surrogate salesforce?

Abstract

The paper discusses the rationale for the international celebrity endorsement strategy and proposes a formal definition of 'celebrity endorsement' before reporting the findings of a formal, large-scale research study. This consisted of exploratory interviews with 12 managers in top-ranking British advertising agencies, followed by a postal questionnaire distributed to 414 named individuals in 148 more agencies. Conclusions are drawn from the responses of 131 respondents, all of whom had had experience of working on advertising featuring celebrities. Analysis of the postal questionnaires yielded nine factors influencing the degree of transferability. The celebrity's familiarity to the target audience accounted for four answers in five. Also important were the audience's liking for the character, their familiarity with the brand, and the celebrity's stock-in-trade. The other five factors collectively accounted for only a third of all responses. Two main conclusions are drawn from these findings, and the implications briefly discussed.