Ah, the perils of celebrity endorsers. They don’t always perform the way the advertiser hopes.
From the AP:
Michelle Kwan’s withdrawal from the Winter Olympics forced two major television advertisers who were featuring the figure skater in their campaigns to reevaluate their plans.
Coca-Cola has decided not to go ahead with one of its two ads that reference Kwan, while Visa USA is sticking with her.
A series of Coke ads that feature rabid fans cheering for their favorite athletes included one in which they were rooting for Kwan. The skater is not seen in the ad.
“Given that it’s cheering her on to win, hopefully, and she is not competing, we didn’t think the ad was still relevant,” Susan McDermott, a spokeswoman for the soft drink company, said Monday. Coke will simply substitute ads featuring other athletes in the spots.
