Levy Names such as Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus make headlines, but do they have the trust from consumers to sell a product? InterMedia Entertainment, a subsidiary of Woodland Hills advertising firm InterMedia Group Inc., thinks it has the magic answer to that question with the debut of its DR Star Index. The index measures a celebrity’s potential pull for direct response marketing campaigns based on six criteria: influence, relevance, recognition, trustworthiness, attractiveness and likeability. “We measure specific attributes of a celebrity, (to see if they) elicit a response or sale. It differs from other measures – we want to understand how a celebrity increases response rates from participation in an advertising campaign,” said InterMedia Entertainment President Rob Levy. A celebrity such as Bieber may rank high in terms of recognition and relevance, he said, but those two attributes alone cannot determine how much that celebrity would help a product or service as an endorser. “It’s a combination that determines the best endorsers,” he said. There are several similar measurement tools already on the market, including MarketingArm Celebrity DBI Index by Omnicom Group Inc. in New York. That index ranks a celebrity by eight attributes: awareness, appeal, aspiration, trust, trendsetter, breakthrough, endorsement and influence. “The Celebrity DBI provides a data-driven approach to help quantify celebrity clout and marketability,” said Chris Anderson, communications director for MarketingArm. Levy said he is aware of rival products, but noted the idea is to make the DR Star Index widely available. “(We’ll) use this as a tool for the advertising community, not just clients to InterMedia, and for other ad agencies and marketers to use in the decision-making toolset,” he said. – Jacquelinne Mejia
