Brands and Celebrities

On the wave of a sad news about Anna Nicole Smith's death, there's an article that touches on the subject of dangers of brand-celebrity associations. Indeed, as much as the company has a control over selection of the celebrity to associate itself with, it can never have a full control of that human being and the image it projects on the brand. It can be manifested in the "innocent" situations like Charleze Theron's wearing Dior watch while being on the contract with Raymond Weil brand, to the life-and-death situations that had surrounded Anna Nicole Smith.

As for the Anna Nicole Smith being TrimSpa's face, "marketing experts say TrimSpa's close association with its spokeswoman could spell disaster for the business. "

"When you mention TrimSpa, the image that came to mind was Anna Nicole Smith and that's the difficulty with being so closely tied to a celebrity," said Robert Passikoff, a New York brand consultant. "You've just pulled the rug out from under what the brand was standing on," he added.

"TrimSpa has some major challenges given the loss of credibility about their product and [now] losing their spokesperson," said Britt Beemer, the chairman of strategic marketing firm America's Research Group. "It's a one-two punch and it does damage their marketing position dramatically."

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/08/smbusiness/trimspa_annanicole/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/08/wtheron08.xml