In politics, polls help gauge a candidate’s popularity with voters. When it comes to celebrities, Q-Scores serve the same purpose. You’ve probably heard of celebrity Q scores before. But you may not know much about how they work, how they are calculated, and what they really mean.
Let’s dive into Q Scores’ 50+ year history. Here’s what fans need to know about their favorite A-listers and how ranking works. For some, Q-Scores could lead to more lucrative opportunities. For other celebrities, Q-Scores could be a sign of a major drop in public favor.
What are Q-Scores anyway?
Woods remains one of the most celebrated athletes in the world. According to celebrity tracker The Q Scores Company, his awareness rate in the United States is 75% among those over the age of six, behind only Michael Jordan and Tom Brady at 76%. pic.twitter.com/AyqqjDVDkQ
– Sports (@Sportico) 8. April 2022
For celebrities, Q-scores are a way of assessing their likeability. The awarding of a score combines a number of indicators, including recognition of a star by the general public. The Q stands for Quotient, as Mental Floss explains, citing the math equation to come up with the official score.
Marketing Evaluations, Inc. is the company behind the Q-Score. They maintain multiple databases of official results for dead and alive celebrities. The company sends out ongoing surveys based on national sample viewers to collect initial data. Respondents must decide if they are the first to hear about a particular celebrity before rating them on a scale indicating their likeability or dislike.
Dividing the number of people who recognize a particular celebrity by the number of people who consider that celebrity their all-time favorite results in a Q-Score. A high positive Q-Score is great, while a drop in Q-Scores means a celebrity has lost ground among fans, Grunge explains.
Do Celebs With Higher Q-Scores Make More Money?
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The short answer is for sure. Celebrities with excellent Q-Scores and increased likeability are more likely to close deals with advertisers than product or service spokespersons. From music industry moguls to movie stars, the more personable a star is, the more attractive they can be for lucrative deals.
The Q-Score evaluations are now also being extended to reality stars and YouTube influencers. So for these online celebrities, popularity means more moolah. Right now, influencers’ Q-scores aren’t as high as their TV, music, or film peers.
Variety says that even the highest-scoring YouTubers can’t match the movie stars’ scores. But great Q-Scores lead to bigger paydays for these online stars.
Prominent examples of good and bad Q-Scores
If you want to see how your favorite stars, musicians, professional athletes and influencers are doing, you can look directly at Q Scores. But here’s how some of the most famous names rank these days, including the incredibly popular to the least popular of them all.
Few names manage to achieve negative all-time Q-scores but continue to be well known, like Kim Kardashian, the queen of someone you’d “would like to hate.” The country’s last president also has a similar status. On the digital side, Ryan Higa and Pentatonix were both very personable with Q-Scores of 30, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In the Favorite NFL Quarterbacks category, The Bleacher Report shared Q-Scores for the biggest names. More than 33% of fans in the poll said Peyton Manning is one of the most popular of them all with a Q-Score of 33. Drew Brees received 29, meaning both are more likable than Tom Brady.
A few celebrities who once had high scores but later fell drastically include some names you’ll likely recognize. dr Mehmet Oz had a great Q-Score as one of America’s favorite screen doctors. Then, in his quest for political leadership, his score dropped a few notches.
When a group of doctors at Columbia University wrote what they called his “quack treatments,” Dr. Oz. And Bill Cosby at one point had only a nine percent negative opinion. By 2015, given his accused behavior, more than half of all respondents disliked him.
Now that you know what Q-Scores is all about, who will you look up first?
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