Why Celebrity Endorsements Still Work in a Creator-First World

It's become fashionable to say influencer marketing has made celebrity endorsements obsolete. In our experience running both, that's not quite right — they solve different problems.

Micro and nano creators are unbeatable for authentic, high-conversion content at the bottom of the funnel. But when a brand needs to establish category credibility fast, at scale, a well-chosen celebrity endorsement still does something creator content alone can't.

The key word is 'well-chosen.' A mismatched celebrity — someone with no genuine category relevance — reads as a paid placement and can actually hurt trust. The best endorsements pair a recognizable name with authentic personal relevance to the product category.

Execution matters as much as talent selection. Negotiating usage rights, coordinating shoot logistics, and rolling out the campaign across owned, earned, and paid channels in a coordinated way is where most celebrity campaigns actually succeed or fail.

When we ran Petal & Co.'s celebrity-led fragrance launch, we paired the endorsement with a supporting wave of 18 mid-tier creators — the celebrity built fast awareness, and the creator wave sustained engagement and conversion afterward.

The right question isn't 'creators or celebrities' — it's which job you're hiring the campaign to do, and for many brands the answer is a coordinated mix of both.