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The Blackfoot Native American people have a saying which has
become common in many tongues: ‘If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.’ Flea-ridden dogs may be passé, but the concept of ‘infection, infestation or
tainting by association’ still has great relevance - particularly when it comes to brand image. Which is why giving Mark Pilgrim the heave-ho from the Pick’n Pay TV
advertising campaign because he hosts a seemingly tasteless TV sex show is not that surprising.
I’ve only recently caught portion of one episode of the M-Net’s
‘sex etc.’ program. One swallow doth not a Summer make, but that snippet alone would have had me asking, ‘Pilgrim, are you doing this because you have to (for the
money) or because you want to?’ If the answer is the former, understood. But if the latter, it’s a pretty spurious connect that he makes between his testicular cancer,
contracted at age eighteen, and a desire to get people talking about things sexual. The sound-bite of his program that I got, had a brain damaged go-carter whinging
about his increased libido and his decreased ability to gratify or satisfy it. He mentioned some erectile dysfunction treatment which he said ‘gave him the confidence
that he could perform.’ There was something distasteful and dreadfully Jerry Springer-ish about the interview with this man, exacerbated by his halting speech and
withered arm. The tenuous and tedious obsession with male erections and their relationship to confidence notwithstanding, there was, even between two briefly-glimpsed
‘experts’ on the segment, a nudge-nudge wink-wink feel that is regretfully and almost inevitably the norm for most such programs. Think back to ‘Dr. Paul’s’ abortive
foray with the genre on SA television years back.
OK, that out of the way, what the heck has it got to do with brand image? Well, the short answer is –
everything. Light years ago, Nedbank used (I think by now ‘the late’) Jack Hadley, a superb TV actor, in a great commercial launching their ‘if you’re serious about
money’ campaign. Not too far into the flighting of the commercial (if memory serves me) Hadley was prosecuted on a drunk-driving charge. Nedbank dropped him and the
commercial like a hot potato.
All players in a media collaboration need strategically to consider the environment in which the message they’ll be conveying,
will be positioned. Years ago, that talented young wordsmith and editor, Neil Bierbaum, wanted me to write columns on communication for his (then) FHM magazine. Uh-uh,
I didn’t think so then and I don’t think so now. I would hate the idea that my articles were juxtaposed with crotch-shots of nubile young things. And that’s not a
flagging libido speaking - it’s simple marketing nous. We forget all too easily that ‘referent power’ and ‘the power of association’ are just that – powers.
More recently, we’ve been exposed to ‘businessman’ Ross Calder of Nelson Mandela art-work infamy. Not that Calder is guilty of anything, until or unless proven to be.
But the very idea that someone can be associated with allegedly fraudulent transactions involving artworks that Madiba says are not his, will have done inestimable
damage to Calder’s reputation – before he ever gets to settle or have his day in court.
By the same token, I was amazed to read that Spoor and Fisher (I’ve
personally used them) – copyright and intellectual property expert attorneys, had evidently been ‘retained’ by Ismail Ayob, Madiba’s erstwhile close friend and legal
advisor. Too late (in my opinion) they announced that they had only been retained for something like ‘preliminary discussions’. What one has to realize is that that
if, even by default, you associate yourself with a perceived ‘attack’ on an international icon, people will not easily forget it, or forgive you. The adage ‘when mud
splatters, everyone in the vicinity gets soiled’ should not be forgotten.
For businesses, professional practices or individuals like the talented and personable
Mark Pilgrim, there’s a caveat: Stop and think before you rush at a piece of business. Over the years, I have steadfastly refused to engage with or ‘help’ people or
entities that I’ve believed to espouse questionable moral or ethical standards. I don’t say this from any pseudo superiority standpoint, but rather from a pragmatic
business one in which you understand that when they go down, you go down reputation-wise, with them.
There’s a ‘line’ which one crosses, in the public
perception. Yes, they sometimes quickly forgive and even ‘rehabilitate’ certain people. Ex cons and swindlers get to be represented by greedy publicists. Socialites
invite the recently-released from clink to their dinner parties. Helluva good talking points or conversation pieces. Indeed. Next time, think before you say ‘yes!’
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