Celebrity endorsement in the non profit sector

The effectiveness of using celebrity endorsement to promote a charity has been explored in a recent survey and the results are somewhat surprising. NfpSynergy surveyed more than 1,000 11- to 25-year-olds living in Britain. Only one in five young people said they would support a charity because a celebrity happened to endorse it. The non profit sector is something that I myself am particularly interested in and I love to see the latest campaigns and viral ads. I do think celebrity endorsement can be effective but I also think that some charities simply rely on their message to reach their audience.

The results of the survey also showed how a celebrity's influence can diminish the older you get with much more 11 to 13 year olds insisting that a celebrity might sway them to support a charity whilst many 23-25 year olds could not say the same. Whether this will affect the direction that non profit PR takes is doubtful. However, maybe it will encourage more charities to take a different approach to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive sector. Personally I think if you are going to incorporate celebrities into a campaign then you need to pick the right ambassador who feels strongly enough about the cause to do it justice