Practitioners’ celebrity endorser selection criteria in South Korea: an empirical analysis using the Analytic Hierarchy Process

ABSTRACTThis study investigated how clients and advertising agencies in Korea prioritized celebrity selection criteria differently. Responses from 50 client-side and 50 agency-side executives in Korea were analyzed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Results show that the brand-centered factor ‘Match-up’ was considered most important by both clients and agencies but that the celebrity-centered factor ‘Popularity’ was ranked quite differently (i.e. second by agencies and fourth by clients, out of five factors). Other factors (i.e. Availability and Potential Risk) were ranked similarly. The main finding of the study is that Korean ad agencies and clients placed different weight on celebrity endorser selection criteria. This finding is particularly valuable to national and international advertisers who are deliberating about celebrity endorsement for the Korean market.