Product driven brands couldn’t live with out celebrity endorsements – they are quick, effective and well worth the time and money. But when they go bad, which we know from experience can happen at any moment, the results can be explosive.
The value vs threat of celebrity brand endorsement is an argument brought into discussion constantly in the PR and advertising circles and this year the conversation has started with a bang – no double entendre intended.
We are still cringing on behalf of Nike for the Oscar Pistorius advertisement the brand recently pulled last week, which quoted the paraolympian, recently accused of shooting his girlfriend- “I am the bullet in the chamber”.
When the irony is unintentially visual in this way, the unfortunate blunder has enormous sharing capacity – social media, blogs you name it – people can’t get enough.
A week earlier, our attention was drawn to this unfortunate billboard, featuring Essendon’s David Zaharakis with the club’s 2013 promotional slogan “I am doing whatever it takes”. Slightly unfortunate in light of the recent Aussie Rules doping scandal.
There are countless other recent examples of unintentional irony caused by celeb endorsement, the below 2011 Dior Addict campaing featuring Kate Moss speaks for itself. The Dior campaign was one of Kate’s more solid gigs after being dumped by 7 brands in 2007 because of continued battle with drug addiction.
But are the brands associated with these scandalous celebrities really suffering?
As I watched Nike and four of Pistorius’s other sponsors began to implement their crisis response I wondered, is the end result a 100 per cent negative for Nike? Type in “I am the bullet in the chamber to Google and the first three pages of results are news stories about how Nike has pulled the ad.
The reality is, this ad (that isn’t supposed to exist anymore) has now been publicised globally, for free. More people would have seen the ad due to the scandal than if it had gone ahead without incident.
Whether brands experience ‘true loss’ as a result of these celebrity mishaps/ crisis is certainly debatable. I for one wouldn’t think twice about purchasing a pair of Nike runners because a paraolympian assoicaited with the brand went awal, but maybe I’m just thick skinned.
Whatever the case the importance of building a strong resliliant brand is hightlighted by these situations. The rule of thumb – when considering a celebrity endorsement, do your research, think of all of the things that could go wrong and ask yourself – can we handle the scandle?
