Using a celebrity hook in your pitch

How to create a story around celebrity news and endorsements

You don’t need to scroll far down the homepage of any major news publication before you see the name of someone famous in a headline.

Readers love stories about celebrities because they tick so many of the boxes that make something a great news story: celebrities are instantly recognisable, readers feel like they know them, and they live fascinating lives that we want to know more about as nosy fellow humans.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

One of the questions I get asked most frequently in my media consultancy sessions goes along the lines of: We’re lining up Celebrity X and Celebrity Y to endorse this product launch, which one do you think would work best for media coverage?

My answer to this, (annoyingly, I know), is usually: It depends - and someone else might be better. Because the truth is that adding a celebrity into your press release does not automatically turn it into a news story.

Here’s what I mean by that - and how you can use celebrities as brilliant hooks for your news and feature pitches: