The Celebrity Pitch

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Plenty of well-known personalities will work for far less; many former athletes can be had for as little as $50,000. Fees depend on the stature of the celebrity and the type of campaign. A TV spot, for example, costs more than a print ad but less than a 30-minute infomercial. Contacting potential pitchers is easier than you might expect. The Screen Actors Guild provides an actor-locator service. Another option is to go through a middleman like Jonathan Holiff, president of the Hollywood-Madison Group, which helps companies recruit celebrities. Holiff has developed a proprietary database of 10,000 stars that he calls "The Fame Index." Clients can plug in up to 250 different search points -- including fees, interests, charities, and medical conditions -- to find the best celebrity match for their product. "Most clients approach us with a specific celebrity in mind, but we teach them to avoid using their personal bias," Holiff says. "The key is to study your likely customer."

It's equally important to study your celebrity. Many endorsement campaigns involve personal appearances and guest spots on television and radio, so your celebrities had better be able to discuss your product without a script. It also helps if they actually believe in what they're selling. "I've turned down more deals than I've accepted," says Barry Williams. "But I'd use Airborne even if I wasn't the spokesperson." That's not always the case. In one instance, actress Cybill Shepherd, then the spokesperson for the National Beef Council, told an interviewer that she was "trying to stay away from red meat."

Which helps explain why skeptics remain unconvinced. Cleveland, for example, has talked clients out of taking the celebrity route. Link your fate to a celebrity, he says, and any mistakes your pitchperson makes become your problem as well. (See Bryant, Kobe, and Simpson, O.J.) And it's a particularly bad idea to enlist reality-TV cast members, he says. "Who remembers anyone from that first season of Survivor, besides the naked guy?" Cleveland asks.

In case you've forgotten, the naked guy was Richard Hatch, the former management consultant and winner of the first season. Since then, Hatch has endorsed a Boston radio station and appeared in the national "Got milk?" ad campaign. These days, however, he's most famous for failing to report his million-dollar Survivor payday to the IRS, for which he faces federal tax evasion charges. Not surprisingly, he's said to be available for work.

Sidebar: Enlisting the B List

Their stars may be dim, but B-listers can still fire up an ad campaign.

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