Lights, Camera, Calculator! The New Celebrity Math

By CARL BIALIK
WSJ

Film and television producers might want to bring a spreadsheet to their next casting meeting.

To help decide which celebrity is the best choice for a film role or product endorsement, entertainment and marketing executives can tap into a host of numbers to gauge public figures' star power. So many, in fact, that the numbers leave a dizzying portrait of who's hot and who's not.

At least four companies regularly track opinion on public figures in entertainment and sports. The venerable Q Score, in its fifth decade, surveys consumers once or twice a year by mail. Three newer competitors rely on the Web, enlisting panel participants to weigh in more regularly. The numbers are marketed to advertisers and casting directors to help them identify celebrities for product pitches or starring roles.

But the various ratings sometimes show sharply different results. That poses a problem for companies that rely on numbers to make casting decisions: If indexes point in different directions, which one should they trust? Moreover, the tracking companies for the most part don't provide their data for free, leaving marketers to decide which ratings service to pay for.

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