"That Rihanna reign just won't let up."
It seems truer words were never spoken when it comes to the influence that pop icon Rihanna has over the mainstream. According to a report released by the NPD Group—a company that tracks consumer spending worldwide—Rihanna is the most marketable celebrity, beating out other high-profile A-list influencers like Angelina Jolie, Tim McGraw and NBA superstar Stephen Curry.
"Rihanna's index score of 367 means that she has almost 3.7 times as many strong brand endorsement opportunities as the average big-name celebrity," the NPD report explains.
Rihanna has already worked with brands like Puma and Jeep, and she now has a multimillion-dollar partnership with Samsung that has the mobile brand rolling out her upcoming album, Anti.
“We can now prove what has been suspected when making expensive sponsorship decisions—that celebrities are media properties in their own right, with audiences that have nuanced brand preferences. In the same way that every sitcom is not equally valuable to a particular brand, neither is every celebrity equally valuable to a particular brand," Barbara Zack, the vice president of NPD Group, said.
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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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