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Marketing Blurb has already told you that using celebrity endorsements is a waste of money. But why listen to us, when you can get the scoop from Q Score a company known for measuring the value of celebrities actors, news anchors and sports figures. And, according to The Wall Street Journal, (paid subscription required) monster ad agency Omnicon Group, has decided to join the handicapping game as well. Omnicon will run the division through their Davie-Brown entertainment division.

"Some of these celebrities cost quite a bit of money," says Jeff Chown, president of Davie-Brown Talent. An advertiser, he adds, "needs to know if they are getting their return on that investment."

The Davie-Brown service will be called, appropriately enough, the Davie-Brown Index, and will be based on regular surveys of people drawn from a 1.5 million-member research panel provided by a Dallas online market-research firm known as i.think. The research panel will evaluate the equity of 1,500 celebrities four times a year. Those who know a given celebrity will be asked “questions about whether that famous person is viewed as a trendsetter, is considered trustworthy and is influential, among other attributes. Respondents also are asked whether the celebrity's endorsement of a product would be believable.” Trust Marketing Blurb on this point—no celebrity endorsement of a product is believable. Photo Credit: Associated Press.