Can’t Market These Drugs
Over the past couple of weeks two of sports largest figures, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps, saw their images crumble in the public’s eye as both stories have been unavoidable topics in the news. Phelps, easily considered the greatest swimmer of all time, was caught at a college party allegedly taking bong rips of Olympic magnitude. A-rod, who was on a juiced-out pace to surpass perhaps every single offensive baseball statistic, had to confess to taking steroids after Sports Illustrated published a report detailing that the baseball great tested positive for the banned substance in 2003. Amazing how two of sports greats got caught doing drugs just weeks apart. Neither of these events are linked; the drugs are different, the sports are different; but what makes these two events similar is that both individuals stand to lose out on a boat load of endorsement money. So what do you do when your spokesperson has a major public image problem?
The answer is not that easy. The companies and advertising agencies that employ these two star athletes spend a substantial amount of money not to just feature these men, but to produce, deploy, place and create these advertisements. The cost to produce these advertisements can run into the millions of dollars. One company, ESPN, is going on as planned. The company is still planning on using A-rod as one of the four spokespeople for their upcoming coverage of the World Baseball Classic. The global campaign is already in place and they can’t back out. You can understand how ESPN would be frustrated but it must have weighed the cost-benefit of pulling him out of the ads and considered it not worth it.
Phelps, on the other hand has had some sponsors support him and some drop him. Speedo, said that they were impressed with his apology and will continue to support him. Speedo must think that using a spokesperson who has been allegedly caught smoking pot will not be an issue with their target audience. While Kellogg, the cereal giant, instantly dropped Phelps from advertising their brand because they did not think their target audience would support Phelps. Every marketer is going to be different, but if you can put yourself in the mindset of the consumer and come to grips that everyone makes mistakes, it might be worth leaving the advertisement as is.
When it comes to having the largest endorsers in sports, there is no one bigger than Nike. Companies can learn from Nike on what to do when one of your largest spokesperson screws up or gets in trouble. When Kobe Bryant was falsely accused of rape, Nike did not drop the endorsement. They froze him, they stopped using him, but they protected him from going anywhere in case the story was untrue. What happened? Kobe was free and took America to win the gold in the past summer’s Olympic Games. The result was that Nike scored with ads featuring the basketball great. Sometimes it pays to be patient.
Now onto the best example of what not to do when your spokesperson’s image goes downhill. How many people have seen the Guitar Hero commercial featuring Tony Hawk, Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps and yes, A-rod? Click here to view the spot. I find it so entertaining that both Phelps and A-rod are in this commercial. It would seem like a no brainer that Activision, the maker of Guitar Hero, would pull the spot. As of this past Wednesday, the company announced that they had no plans to pull the commercial. The company said its purchases are in place and that the end is soon for ad anyways. Amazing right? If the ads were going to be over soon, how valuable would running them truly be and if I was Tony Hawk I might ask them to be pulled just to save face. In the world of advertising there is no safe guarantee. These athletes were chosen because of their great athletic talent as well as their ability to attract a substantial amount of attention. However, you have to believe the companies are going to be more careful when they consider who should advertise their product.
Tags: A-rod, Advertising, Alex Rodriguez, Arod, Michael Phelps, Spokesperson
