Brand Mix

Et tu, Tiger? For a while it looked like stonewalling might work and that the huge amount of goodwill in the Tiger bank might be enough. But, by the end of the week, as voice mails and text messages exposed more and more of the gory details, the great sports icon of our time was under siege. The lesson: If you use celebrity endorsers, you better have a crisis management plan in place as well:

1) Problems: Mike Arauz
If you'd like to get a peek inside Team Tiger's crisis room, read it here.

2) Hand of Frog: Egg Strategy

Gillette must be feeling particularly aggrieved right now. Even before Tiger drove into a fire hydrant, it already had a problem with this Champions ad. The original version showed Thierry Henry holding the ball and, therefore, had to be changed. (Anyone not following World Cup soccer qualifiers may be thinking "why?"--Here's the answer.) C'mon Roger. Your turn!

3) Subway's Brand Has A Large Jared Problem: brandchannel
And Tigers's and Henry's sponsors are not the only ones with problems. It appears that Jared, the guy who lost 245 lbs eating Subway sandwiches, has been putting back on the weight. Perez Hilton posted a picture of Jared not looking as svelte as he does in the Subway ads. As Abe Sauer points out in his post: "The problem with hitching your brand-wagon to a single star is that sometimes that star falls off his or her own wagon."

And now switching gears from fallen celebrities to celebration:

4) What are the best TV ads of the noughties? Guardian.co.uk
Get ready for tons of "best of" lists this year. Not just best of the year. Best of the decade too. The Guardian gets off to an early start with a list of best (UK) ads. Included on the list is a series of spots for John Smith beer featuring Peter Kay, a "no-nonsense" celebrity endorser.



5) OK Go - WTF? OK Go (via brandflakesforbreakfast)


The latest from OK Go. Another great idea as follow up to Here It Goes Again. Celebrities of their own video.

6) Characters for an epic tale: love all this

Companies sign up celebrities hoping that they will be heroes of their epic tale. Unfortunately, they sometimes fail to live up to this hope, playing instead one of the other characters from this great poster.

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy (and vaguely related areas). More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).