Celebrity endorsements are one of the top ways brands can stand out in 2025. When a famous face gives your brand the “green light”, others will follow. The power of an endorsement is growing, too. Whereas only 13% of adults over 55 are “influenced” by celebrity endorsements, that number rises to a significant 28% among 18- to 34-year-olds.
However, while a celebrity endorsement is a great kick-starter, brands also have to be careful. The endorsement itself matters - as does the celebrity. There’s a lot that can go wrong, from PR disasters to mismatched audiences.
In this guide, we’re going to help you with your celebrity endorsement journey. We’re going to break down exactly what you should be looking for in your endorsement, how to choose the right person, and even run through some of the key metrics you can use to track success.
- Why Celebrity Endorsements Still Work
- What Brands Want From a Celebrity Partnership
- The Vetting Process: How Brands Choose the Right Celebrities
- Key Metrics Brands Use to Measure Endorsement Success
- How Brand Needs Vary by Industry
- Celebrity vs. Influencer vs. Creator: What’s the Difference for Brands?
- Red Flags That Make Brands Walk Away
- How Celebrities Can Make Themselves More Appealing to Brands
- Real Examples of Celebrity Endorsements That Worked
- Looking Ahead: How AI, AR, and Tech Are Changing Celebrity Endorsements
- The Bottom Line
Why Celebrity Endorsements Still Work
Even in the age of digital and social media advertising, celebrity endorsements are still a fantastic option. A well-thought-out celebrity endorsement can see massive ROI. Here’s why:
- Trust & credibility - celebrities, especially influencers with a niche focus, are the modern-day “experts” in their field. If that celebrity is endorsing a product, it automatically transfers some of that trust and credibility to the brand.
- Massive reach - celebrities have wide audiences. Even micro influencers can have reaches of up to 100,000 people.
- Social proof - celebrities are often seen as trendsetters. If they’re using or wearing something, it signals to others that it’s worth looking into.
- Emotional connection - people don’t just follow celebrities. They feel they “know” them in some sense. And when someone they admire uses a product, people are more likely to feel a pull toward it
- Differentiation - today’s markets (even niche ones) are increasingly crowded. Attaching a recognizable face can make a brand more memorable.
What Brands Want From a Celebrity Partnership
Follower counts are important, but they're not the only thing that matters. What do brands like yours really need from a celebrity partnership? It’s important to assess your own needs before you start DMing celebrities.
Let’s explore some of the top things a celebrity endorsement or partnership can offer:
Audience Alignment and Demographics Fit
Let’s say your brand sells high-end treats for dogs. A wellness/pet influencer on Instagram might have tens, even hundreds of thousands of followers who you know for sure are interested in this kind of content - and probably your product. Another example would be a beauty brand targeting Gen Z by choosing a TikTok star who has a younger audience.
Celebrity partnerships are a relatively easy way to speak to your audience without trying to find them individually. It’s efficient and cost-effective.
Brand Values and Image Match
It can take years for a brand to build its sense of values. Any partnership should strengthen that sense. Work with celebrities who echo your values. For instance, if your brand is all about sustainability, you would benefit from working with a celebrity known for eco-conscious lifestyle choices.
If you don’t align your values in this way, you risk accusations of being disingenuous. The right alignment makes sure the partnership feels authentic rather than forced. Plus, you want to maintain a positive brand reputation!
Engagement Over Follower Count
Follower counts aren’t everything. Today’s social media platforms are filled with bots (Instagram, for example, estimates roughly 10% of its users are bots!). Bot followers may boost numbers, but they drag down other metrics. They don’t actually engage with content.
Brands know this. Companies increasingly care less about raw follower numbers and more about how actively fans engage with a celebrity. Someone with fewer followers but higher interaction rates can drive more meaningful results than a mega-star with passive fans - or bots!
Versatility Across Channels (TV, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
A single celebrity endorsement doesn’t need to exist on a single channel. In fact, most endorsements don’t. Brands want celebrities who can adapt their message to multiple channels. Perhaps you can repurpose a message or video into a traditional ad, an Instagram Story, a TikTok trend, or a YouTube collaboration.
Different channels have different user bases, so spreading a partnership as far and wide as possible (as long as it’s still based on audience research) can maximize visibility and keep your message consistent.
Professionalism and Reputation Off-Camera
Reliability matters. It’s not just about the celebrity’s reputation on-camera. You should aim to partner with celebrities who have a stellar reputation off-camera, too. The last thing you want is a celebrity controversy damaging your own PR!
Even setting aside controversies, you want a partnership you can count on; someone you can rely on to show up on time and deliver the goods (high-quality content). If they can’t deliver that, even if your audiences align perfectly, you should move on.
Past Endorsements and Overexposure Risks
We all know what it’s like to get fed up with a celebrity or influencer endorsing too many products. It can come off as disingenuous and inauthentic. In short, a celebrity’s influence weakens when they endorse too many products.
Brands know this. Experienced PR professionals will spend a lot of time evaluating a celebrity’s endorsement history carefully to avoid dilution or associations with competitors.
The Vetting Process: How Brands Choose the Right Celebrities
There are probably dozens of “perfect” celebrities to endorse your brand. However, separating these from the bad isn’t always easy.
Every brand considering celebrity partnerships must develop a rock-solid vetting process so they can increase their chances of a high-performance campaign and reduce the risk of backlash.
Here are some fundamental steps:
Deep Dive into Social Metrics and Audience Behavior
Always look beyond follower counts. Look carefully into the celebrity’s audience demographics. How well do they align with yours? Also take a deep dive into their engagement rates and how fans interact with their content.
Brands should analyze several important metrics across multiple channels, such as:
- Comment sentiment
- Share rates
- Content performance
Crucially, businesses should find out not just how many people a potential partner reaches, but how much those people actually interact with their content.
Background Checks: Scandals, Controversies, and Risk Factors
A celebrity’s public image can make or break a campaign. Brands should carefully review past media coverage and online behavior (such as tweets) to assess whether the influencer is suitable for partnership.
Even if their past is clean, you should seek to understand their personality to assess whether there could be a future controversy. Remember, even a small scandal can create reputational damage if the celebrity is strongly tied to the brand.
There are countless examples of this. For example, when Lance Armstrong admitted to doping after years of denial, he lost endorsements with Nike, Anheuser-Busch, and others.
Sentiment Analysis and Brand Affinity Scoring
It’s not just about how good your messaging is. You also need to assess whether the endorsement will feel authentic to consumers. This is one of the most important aspects to any celebrity endorsement.
Brands use multiple social listening tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social evaluate how the public perceives a celebrity. They’ll usually look for:
- Positive or negative sentiment
- Alignment with certain values
- Overall brand affinity
Reviewing Past Campaign Outcomes (If Any)
Has the celebrity in question worked with other brands? If so, it’s a good idea to look for some tangible results. Success in previous endorsements is a strong indicator the celebrity knows what they’re doing. Look for:
- Sales lifts
- Engagement increases
- Overall campaign reception
Overexposure or lackluster results could raise some red flags.
Key Metrics Brands Use to Measure Endorsement Success
The ultimate goal of any celebrity endorsement is usually to sell more products. However, sales isn’t the only metric that matters. A solid campaign should analyze various metrics to assess the overall effectiveness of the endorsement.
Here are the key metrics we use to measure endorsement success - and you should too:
Sales Uplift and ROI Tracking
The most obvious indicator of success is a significant increase in sales after the endorsement. The more sales, the higher the ROI, the better the value. The easiest way to assess this is to compare baseline sales before the campaign with sales during and after.
Here’s a handy ROI formula you can use:
ROI = Net Profit from Campaign / Campaign Cost x 100
Here’s an example: let’s imagine a big brand spends $2M on a celebrity endorsement and sees an additional $6M in sales with $3M profit.
ROI = (3M / 2M) × 100 = 150%
Their ROI was a strong 150%.
Earned Media Value (EMV)
EMV (Earned Media Value) is a little harder to calculate than ROI, as it’s not necessarily tied to exact figures. Earned media is unpaid publicity generated by an endorsement, like mentions in press, social chatter, influencer reposts, and organic reach.
To calculate EMV effectively, brands need to assign a dollar value to impressions and engagements a brand would otherwise have to pay for via advertising.
A formula could look like this:
EMV = (Impressions or Engagements from Earned Media) x (Cost per Impression or Engagement if Paid)
If your average cost per 1000 impressions is $7.19 (the average on Facebook), and earned media generates 3000 impressions, your EMV would be:
EMV = (3000) x (7.19) = 21,570.
Social Media Engagement and Reach
Brands should track how an endorsement boosts visibility and interaction online. To do this, they’ll monitor standard metrics like:
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Saves
- Retweets
- Video views
- Follower growth
You might find it useful to generate a singular engagement rate (ER) with this formula:
ER = Total Engagements / Total Followers x 100.
Brand Recall and Sentiment Lift
Beyond sales and engagement, brands also want to judge how well a celebrity endorsement improves brand perception. To do this, they focus on two main metrics:
- Brand recall - do consumers remember your brand after exposure to the campaign? Brands usually measure recall via surveys.
- Sentiment lift - the easiest way to measure brand sentiment is to use social listening tools, which categorize mentions as positive, neutral, or negative before and after the campaign.
If you want to quantify exactly how much sentiment has improved, you can measure sentiment lift with this formula:
Sentiment Lift % = Positive Sentiment After - Positive Sentiment Before / Positive Sentiment Before x 100
Example: if your brand had a pre-campaign positive sentiment of 25% and a post-campaign positive sentiment of 55%, you’d calculate sentiment lift as follows:
Sentiment Lift % = 55 - 25 / 25 x 100 = 120%.
Traffic Spikes and Search Volume Changes
You would expect a successful celebrity endorsement to trigger some increase in search volume or web traffic. Here’s exactly where you should be looking:
- Website traffic - look for increases in unique visitors, session length, and conversions.
- Search volume - tools like Google Trends show how often the brand or product is searched after an endorsement goes live.
Here’s an overall formula you can use to measure traffic lift:
Traffic/Search Lift % = Traffic After - Traffic Before / Traffic Before x 100
Example: let’s say you had 40 daily visitors before the campaign and 90 during. Calculate like so:
Traffic/Search Lift % = 90 - 40 / 40 x 100 = 125%.
How Brand Needs Vary by Industry
What makes a successful celebrity endorsement is different for every business. However, there are some common threads we can draw between industries.
Let’s see how brand needs for endorsements vary between some major industries:
- Fashion & beauty - aspirational appeal is critical. Brands want celebrities who embody style, trends, and personal expression. Visual platforms dominate.
- Sports & fitness - credibility and performance matter most. Athletes and fitness influencers bring authority, as consumers trust they actually use and benefit from the products.
- Luxury goods - exclusivity and prestige. They often choose high-profile celebrities whose lifestyle reinforces sophistication.
- Food & beverage - relatability and wide appeal. Celebrities who feel approachable and family-friendly are preferred, since endorsements must resonate with everyday purchase decisions.
- Tech - credibility, trust, and innovation. Tech brands seek celebrities who are perceived as smart and forward-thinking.
- Non-profits - alignment with values is paramount. The celebrity’s authenticity and passion for the cause outweigh their commercial appeal.
Celebrity vs. Influencer vs. Creator: What’s the Difference for Brands?
Terms like “celebrity” and “influencer” are everywhere. People often use them interchangeably. However, this is a mistake. There are actually important differences between celebrities, influencers, and creators that brands need to understand:
- Celebrities - these are people who are “traditionally” famous. They might be actors, athletes, musicians, or other public figures. The key thing is that they’re famous beyond social media. That means super-broad reach, but also probably high cost.
- Influencers - these are well-known individuals who built authority and followings within a niche, like beauty or gaming. They might not be “mainstream famous” like a celebrity, but they provide strong audience trust and higher engagement rates.
- Creators - here, we’re referring to talented individuals who are focused on producing unique, high-quality content. This could be educational content, or pure entertainment. Either way, what they offer is fresh, authentic storytelling brands can repurpose across channels.
All three types of endorsers have their pros and cons. You don’t have to pick one - many campaigns blend all three for maximum coverage!
Red Flags That Make Brands Walk Away
Not every celebrity or influencer is guaranteed to help your campaign succeed. Any business considering a celebrity endorsement should look out for red flags that suggest the person in question might not be the best fit.
Any one of these indicators should be pause for thought:
- Controversial behavior or scandals - we recommend steering clear of anyone who has been or is tied up in controversial behavior. Small brands can’t afford to be tied to scandals.
- Overexposure - if the celebrity is endorsing products left, right, and center, it could tell you they’re not particularly worried about partnering with brands they actually value. Audiences will realize this, too.
- Audience mismatch - even a huge following is useless if it doesn’t align with the brand’s target demographics or values.
- Low engagement - a large audience that doesn’t interact is the same value as no audience at all.
- Negative sentiment trends - consistent online backlash or declining reputation signals trouble for long-term brand health.
How Celebrities Can Make Themselves More Appealing to Brands
If you’re a celebrity looking to secure top-notch brand deals and further your career, there are some things you can do to make yourself a better candidate. For example:
- Maintain a positive image - actively try to avoid scandals and always engage responsibly online. Also try to project consistency between personal and public personas.
- Cultivate authenticity - don’t follow trends for the sake of it. Show audiences who you really are by sharing genuine interests and making endorsements that feel natural rather than transactional.
- Diversify platforms - don’t just stick to what you know. If there’s an audience for your brand on another platform, go for it! This makes brands more likely to see you as a viable collaborator.
- Engage with fans - many influencers fail to actually interact with fans (for example, by replying to comments), and simply broadcast. Successful influencers create a two-way highway and meet fans halfway.
- Show professionalism - do your best to demonstrate punctuality and reliability - brands value this.
- Sign with passions - celebrities who clearly stand for something they really care about (say, sustainability or wellness) are more attractive to brands looking for authentic values alignment.
Real Examples of Celebrity Endorsements That Worked
There are literally countless examples of celebrity endorsements that have skyrocketed a brand’s public image and boosted their sales. Many have been collaborating continuously for years, even decades!
Here are some examples:
Air Jordan (Michael Jordan & Nike) - perhaps the most iconic celebrity endorsement ever. Since 1984, Nike and Michael Jordan have been collaborating on shoe design. Nike’s initial goal was to generate $3m - they ended up generating over $126m in the first year alone.
Today, the partnership has purportedly generated over $10b in revenue!
Amy Schumer & Tampax - Tampax made a smart choice when they decided Amy Schumer was the perfect person to normalize open conversations about periods. It worked. The campaign reportedly increased sales by 7.7% in two years in North America.
Oprah Winfrey & Apple TV+ - this wasn't a product push, rather an original content partnership. Apple teamed up with Oprah to bring credibility (plus a loyal fanbase) to Apple TV+ as a platform.
Reports show that Apple TV+, once a newcomer, is estimated to reach 136m subscribers in 2025.
Looking Ahead: How AI, AR, and Tech Are Changing Celebrity Endorsements
Celebrity endorsements are changing. Traditional celebrity collaborations still stand tall as a go-to strategy, but new forms are also emerging. These forms might cost less and, in the future, be just as effective as traditional methods. Small businesses, take note:
- Virtual influencers & AI-generated endorsements - virtual influencers like Lil Miquel or AI-generated models are on the rise. They’re not just for niche audiences, either: huge brands like Prada and Samsung are already using them. These avatars provide complete creative control, zero scandal risk, and 24/7 content production, making them valuable assets in today’s market.
- A filters & celebrity avatars - AR (Augmented Reality) is helping to make celebrity endorsements more interactive. For example, Snapchat and Instagram AR filters allow fans to “try on” a celebrity’s signature look, like a makeup line, in real time. Some brands are also building celebrity avatars that interact with consumers. This level of immersion might prove extremely valuable for businesses in the future.
- Partnerships powered by predictive algorithms - endorsements no longer have to rely on intuition. Science is playing a larger and larger role. AI-driven analytics tools now assess not just audience size but sentiment, engagement quality, and purchase intent. Predictive algorithms can even forecast how a potential celebrity-brand match might perform based on past outcomes!
All of these shifts have the potential to increase celebrity endorsement ROI and reduce risk in a big way.
The Bottom Line
Social proof and credibility are everything in modern marketing. Few other forms of advertising offer as much credibility as a powerful celebrity endorsement. Celebrities and influencers come with pre-built fanbases and subject authority brands can effectively plug into.
However, you have to choose the right celebrity. Avoid controversy and look for success metrics beyond follower counts. Also invest in post-campaign analysis. Track metrics like sales uplift and brand sentiment to see how well your campaign is really doing.
You don’t have to do all this alone. As a leading Digital marketing agency we have the skills and experience you need to develop a rock-solid celebrity endorsement campaign with lower risk. Reach out to our team to find out more!