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Hall of Famers Marino, Bradshaw still popular among U.S. consumers
Sep 6, 2007
THEY STILL GOT IT: HALL OF FAMERS MARINO, BRADSHAW POPULAR AMONG CONSUMERSChargers RB Tomlinson, Colts QB Manning score well on celebrity index
DALLAS –- Peyton Manning and Reggie Bush step aside. Pro football Hall of Fame quarterbacks Terry Bradshaw and Dan Marino are the top-ranked football celebrities in the Davie Brown Celebrity Index (DBI), an independent index that determines a celebrity's ability to influence brand affinity and consumer purchase intent.
Former Cowboys and Cardinals running back Emmitt Smith, ranks third overall in the DBI, which is based on consumer surveys that measure celebrities across eight attributes, including awareness, trust, appeal, notice, and aspiration.
Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, last season’s Super Bowl MVP, ranks fourth overall, followed by former Raiders head coach and ESPN color analyst John Madden.
But it’s Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson, last season’s NFL MVP, who dominates the individual attributes. According to the updated DBI, Tomlinson posts the highest scores in appeal, trust, aspiration, notice, endorsement, influence, and trendsetter.
He ranks 28th among all active and retired pro football celebs in the DBI database and 642 of 1500 celebrities in the DBI, which includes actors, singers, TV personalities, athletes, and pundits. Because recognition is often at the heart of celebrity selection, awareness is given a 60 percent weighting in the overall DBI score calculation.
“It’s hard to dispute LT’s success on the football field,” said Scott Sanford, senior client director at Davie Brown Talent, which created the DBI. “But it’s his off-the-field persona that consumers appreciate and are drawn to. The numbers don’t lie. Among those who know him, his appeal is undeniable.”
Other notes from the report:
-- In terms of appeal, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, and Marshall Faulk trail Tomlinson. Michael Vick, Randy Moss, and Terrell Owens are the three least appealing football celebs in the DBI database.
-- Tomlinson’s trust score is only slightly higher than Manning’s – 73.3 to 73.0. Other football celebs scoring high in trust include Jerry Rice, Smith, Brett Favre, and Steve Young.
ABOUT THE DAVIE BROWN INDEX
The Davie Brown Index® (DBI) is an independent index for brand marketers and agencies that determines a celebrity’s ability to influence brand affinity and consumer purchase intent. The DBI provides brand marketers with a systematic approach for quantifying and qualifying the use of celebrities in marketing campaigns by evaluating a celebrity’s awareness, appeal and relevance to a brand’s image and their influence on consumer buying behavior.
Created by celebrity talent licensing firm Davie Brown Entertainment, the DBI consists of more than 1,500 celebrities and is powered by a 1.5 million-member domestic research panel. Respondents evaluate celebrities along eight key attributes: Appeal, aspiration, awareness, endorsement, influence, notice, trendsetter, and trust.
An overall DBI score is developed each time a celebrity is indexed and can be sorted by key demographics, including gender, age and ethnicity. Each celebrity is also indexed to a specific celebrity category such as “Male Film” or “Female Sports,” so searches can be performed at a more detailed level.
The DBI includes today’s most relevant celebrities for brand marketers because it’s dynamically updated, both on a weekly basis, as well as through special requests from DBI subscribers. This enables brand marketers to react quickly to current events affecting celebrities and gain insight into lesser-known celebrities who are “on the rise.”
When time is of the essence, the DBI “express” feature offers the industry’s only 48-hour celebrity evaluation tool. An express report enables brand marketers and agencies to gain quick insight on particular celebrities and fuels the growth of the DBI by having these celebrities added to the index.
