As Nike sticks by a tarnished Penn St., others flee
The last 10 days have obviously tarnished the Penn State brand, and left advertisers, sponsors, and others closely associated with the university and its football program with some tough questions. Boiled down, it amounts to this: How far should you go to distance yourself from the crisis?
Fallout has already been heavy, so much so that Penn State has hired Ketchum to help the university navigate through the mess. Yet this may be one of those cases — and there are many — when the big PR firm is brought in too late.
“Penn St. has been incredibly tarnished, it’s a huge hit to that brand,” says Paul Pierson, a partner at branding and design firm Carbone Smolan Agency. “Some of the most damaging things to the brand have already done, like the outpouring of support from the Penn State students for Paterno after the firing,” he adds. “That made it look as though the school cared more about football than ethics.”
Now the university is apparently considering removing its stadium’s statue of Paterno, who was head coach of the Nittany Lions football team from 1966-2011. (A columnist for CBSSports.com, @greggdoyelcbs, Tweeted that Penn St. professors have told students that the statue will come down over Thanksgiving). Paterno’s name has already been removed from the Big Ten’s championship trophy. And all traces of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky — the subject of the child abuse accusations — are hurriedly being erased. (The picture at left shows artist Michael Pilato painted over the portion of his mural that showed Sandusky).
Keep in mind Paterno and the football team were once the university’s best marketing tool. Just ask Nike, which has continued to stand by the university and its former coach. It has long been Penn State’s footwear and uniform supplier.
How closely is Nike sticking with the school and its former coach? To the amazement of many, Nike hasn’t indicated any plans to change the name of its Joe Paterno Child Development Center, a daycare facility on its Beaverton, Oregon campus. In a statement, Nike said, “Our relationship with Penn State remains unchanged. We are deeply disturbed by the claims brought forth in the indictments. We will continue to monitor the situation closely. We have no current plans to change the name of our child care center.”
Forbes writer Clare O’Connor ran all this past Prevent Child Abuse America’s CEO James Hmurovich, who said the following: “What allegedly happened at Penn State should outrage our nation, and to find that a national brand will not distance itself from Penn State and Joe Paterno in this situation is equally disturbing.”
Meebo launches new ads with 30-second guarantee
Convincing marketers to try a new type of Internet ad format isn’t easy, especially during a time when ad budgets are getting cut.
But Meebo has come up with a novel way to entice advertisers to take the plunge: the company will guarantee that Web surfers spend at least 30 seconds interacting with ads that run in its new advertising units.
The new ads are integrated within the Meebo real time communications service, which provides instant messaging and link-sharing capabilities on more than 40 Web sites including myYearbook, CafeMom and Current TV.
Meebo said up to 85 Web sites have signed up to go live with the service.
At first glance, Meebo’s new ads don’t look like that big of a deal – the ad is essentially a small icon within the Meebo toolbar that’s parked at the bottom of a partner site’s Web page. But a click on the icon expands into an “overlay” of up to 900×400 pixels, which can feature rich media, such as video and games.
Meebo Chief Operating Officer Martin Green says that user engagement with the new ads is much better than with traditional online display ads, because viewers would need to click on the tab to call up the ad.
“We have done this in testing and in the last couple of months we get on average over a minute of time spent, which is a massive amount of time with advertisers’ content,” said Green. “Part of the reason is you only get people who are interested in checking it out.”
Looks very promising, like a more sophisticated Google ad. If this takes off Meebo could be sitting on gold as big G is always on the look out for interesting concepts.
Boycott Nike! Shut Down Penn State! The reason Nike won’t shut Penn State out is beyond belief. Still supporting this sickness is despicable.