A conceptual Taxonomy of Celebrity applied to operational marketing activity using celebrity endorsers

This thesis uses grounded theory and ethnographic content analysis to develop a revised meaning transfer model and a multi-level matrix-style Taxonomy of Celebrity. The Taxonomy allows for all celebrities to be classified into one of the nine taxa. The Taxonomy of Celebrity is then overlaid with risk to provide guidance for the selection and review of celebrities for operational marketing activity. The research also introduces the novel terms artefacts of celebrity, state of celebrity and absolute celebrity.