Selecting Celebrity Endorsers: The Practitioner’s Perspective

ABSTRACT Although a number of scholars have investigated effective celebrity endorser characteristics with consumer samples using experimental methods, there is only one study by Miciak and Shanklin (1994) that explored the point of view of practitioners who are responsible for the selection of celebrities. This paper investigates British advertising agency managers9 consideration of important celebrity characteristics when selecting an endorser and these factors9 importance according to product types. The research findings validate much of the consumer-based research in that managers consider a range of criteria when choosing celebrity endorsers and indicate that the importance of the criteria depends on the product type.