The price of celebrity endorsement

Stephanie Rice’s slip-up on Twitter is yet another reminder of the flip side of celebrity endorsement. (If you missed it, she referred to the losing South African Rugby side as ‘faggots”.)

Marketers have bought and borrowed fame for centuries. The marketing appeal is almost overwhelming. “Consumers love Personality X. So if Personality X endorses my brand … Consumers will love my brand!”

And it works. Until Personality X does something dumb.

Steph is only 22. We all do silly things when we are young. (Thank God Twitter and other ways of exhibiting stupidity weren’t around when I was 22. I still managed to be offensive enough to make it into the Canberra Times when I was at Uni. But that’s another story.)

So, what does a marketer usually do when their prize personality proves to be mortal? Often they dump them.

At the time of writing, Jaguar has terminated its sponsorship with Ms Rice and has asked for their $100,000 car to be returned. Sun Rice has said nothing and Davenport underwear has made a statement.

The funny thing is I was not aware that Steph was a Jaguar or Davenport spruiker at all. And I only knew she was connected to Sunrice because I did some work for them once.

It’s ironic that her connection to these three brands only really comes to the fore when she makes a mistake. She’s been paid a fair bit, no one notices, then she stuffs up, we notice, and she get’s sacked. The overwhelming marketing logic suddenly doesn’t look so overwhelming.

In fact of 32,000 readers of The Sydney Morning Herald who had a vote, 67% thought “she acted inappropriately”.

I’m sure Stephanie is a very nice person. She made a tearful and seemingly genuine apology on Wednesday.

And as I’ve said earlier, we all make mistakes, but when it comes to a brand personality, give me Louie the Fly any day. He hardly ever gets caught with his pants down.

If you have a creative advertising problem call Tony Richardson on (02) 9929 0588 or visit Tony Richardson Advertising

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