Dead Celeb Society

Admittedly, I'd love to post something juicy about the Tiger Woods sponsorship issue. But everyone already has - and I couldn't shed any new light on the situation - less of course he was dating my sister.

However, there are an extremely few number of sponsorship opportunities that involve connecting your brand with a high profile sports figure "brand" that won't end up carrying SOME type of negativity along the way.

Do you account for this at the beginning of your relationship or do you just measure all of that upside the agent is providing? When you do your evaluation - do you take into account the cost associated with your new crisis PR plan?

Dan Beeman gives a great reason to account for this in his blog from Sponsorship Insight Group.

I had proposed a couple of months ago that if companies want to play the celeb game, consider looking at connecting their brands with DEAD celebs instead. Silk products can brand themselves with Genghis Khan, the man credited for solidifying the silk trade route. James Dean recently made an appearance for South African investment firm Allan Gray. Monte Blanc pens provided a great example by connecting Ghandi with their pen co. in support of his worthy foundation.

Point is - if you're gonna do the dance with Iverson, Vick, Phelps, Woods, Rose and so on... be sure to take into account the negative "intangibles" (there's no such thing as intangible - but I'll save that for the Christmas break) and for goodness sake don't put your company in a situation where all your eggs are in one basket.