“Hi, I’m Dwaine Chambers…”
Celebrity endorsement is a tricky area. At its worst, you pick the wrong celeb, annoy your target market and waste a lot of money in the process (see L’Oreal’s use of Scarlett Johansson, apparently…). However, I think I’ve just found the best use of it – and possibly a whole new category, which I will entitle “Opportunism Celebrity Endorsement”.
The BBC website reports that the disgraced sprinter Dwaine Chambers has been using a new (and completely legal) piece of breathing apparatus to help his training. The device, an “AltoLab Altitude Simulator”, is distributed in the United States by a company called Pharma Pacific. The Pharma Pacific President’s quick thinking when asked about the disgraced athlete may have turned Dwaine Chambers into the perfect ambassador for their product:
“What’s really interesting for us is that he was dealing with steroids for many years and this seems to be giving even better results,” the company’s president, Andrew Backhaus said.
No sensible sports brand would touch Dwaine Chambers with a barge pole right now. But if you can use him to prove your product’s better than steroids, you’re definitely going to get the attention of the athletics world.
