"Celebrities with Legs" by The New England Consulting Group

June 9, 2010 - PRLog -- Westport, CT - It’s bathing suit season and check out them legs.  We’ve got Jennifer Hudson, Angie Everheart, Marie Osmond, Valerie Bertinelli, Dan Marino and Jason Alexander.

According to Gary Stibel, Founder and CEO of the Westport, CT based New England Consulting Group, “Weight Watchers’ choice of Jennifer Hudson as a celebrity endorser/client is brilliant, and the exception to the rule in marketing and advertising today.”

According to Stibel, many major marketers select celebrities based upon personal preferences, vague metrics, subjective judgments, etc.

But it gets worse.  Tom Hayes, Managing Partner and Principal of the New England Consulting Group, states that “among the very worst of all presenters is an inappropriately used CEO”.  Lee Iacocca was a brilliant presenter for Chrysler but Frank Borman (boring) was not for Eastern Airlines (sorry Charlie).

Regardless, the New England Consulting Group replaces personal judgment with a model that focuses on what’s important to target consumers of a marketer/brand.  Stibel points out that the model is proprietary but weighs each personality based upon a mutually exclusive and exhaustive set of variables which correlates with behavior in the marketplace.  While not willing to share the model publicly, some of the variables included are: relevance, realism, PRobability (the probability of the celebrity attracting exceptional PR), trustworthiness, integrity and aspiration.

According to Stibel, “our model does not guarantee the absolute best celebrity presenter for every market segment, but it virtually ensures the elimination of average or weak celebrities, and it has hit the jackpot on more than one occasion.” As recent examples, he cites Kirstie Alley for her representation of Jenny Craig during a period of time when the business reversed course from double-digit declines to double-digit growth and Charles Schwab for the right way to use a CEO to promote a company/brand.

About the New England Consulting Group

The New England Consulting Group is the world’s premier marketing management consultancy whose partners possess 25+ years of line management and management consultant experience.  For a list of New England’s clients and partners, visit www.necg.net, or contact Michelle Zarrilli, Media Relations Manager, at 203-226-9200 x118 or at news@necg.net.

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The New England Consulting Group is a growth strategy consulting firm for marketing-driven organizations. Our services include: corporate and business unit strategy, branding, competitive assessment, benchmarking, product development and implementation.