One of the things that drives me a bit mental in Asia is their obsession with celebrity endorsement.
Seriously, if it’s not some Hollywood star selling their cred for a treasure chest of golden nuggets, it’s a local television company pimping out their z-grade ‘celebratories’ because they can more cash from that than any amount of zzzzzz-grade content they could churn out.
However one thing that is common to both is that when a celebratory is used, they are glammed up and airbrushed to within an inch of their life.
Of course, they’ve not exactly been hit with the ugly stick in the first place but even then, the brands who use them DEMAND their ‘stars’ are as exceptional as is physically possible because not only do they think it adds ‘aspirationl hence …
[No, it’s not the Queen Mum, it’s Nicole Kidman]
… ends up looking like this …
… or this …
I swear-to-god, I bet that even I could be made half decent if some madman decided they wanted me to be the face of their brand.
Or then again …
Anyway, the reason I say this is because I recently saw an exception to this rule, an exception sooooooooooo extreme that either the celebratory involved was either signed up while he was drunk, or is currently in the process of being sued.
The person in question is Chinese basketball legend, Yao Ming.
Yao Ming isn’t just one of China’s best-known athletes but because he plays in the NBA with the Houston Rockets [not to mention he’s the tallest player in the NBA], he’s also one of the best known athletes in the USA.
Given his high profile [it’s claimed he’s been the richest celebratory in China for the past 6 years] it’s little surprise that the Chinese Government view him as some sort of ‘poster child’ for their country, which is why his image rights are so carefully – and closely – protected … which makes it all the more strange that no one connected to him felt it was worth pointing out that in this ad campaign for Chinese GPS technology company, UniStrong, he looks like some drunken, bloated, half-asleep, jetlagged Chinese magician.
How bad is that?
Seriously, how bad is that!
Hell, with the little quiff, he could easily be mistaken for a bad Elvis impersonator … and I’m talking ‘Elvis’ a few days before the dying-on-the-toilet phase.
Now as Hugh Grant has shown, bad decisions need not mean bad career [or in his case, maybe it does] but I am shocked that Yao Ming and his advisors let this go … mind you, if my 375,000 RMB investment in UniStrong had turned in 75,000,000 RMB in little over 3 years, maybe I wouldn’t give a fuck how I looked either.
All that aside, what I find interesting is that we have a Chinese brand who is seemingly walking away from the over-blown, aspirational [& cliched] lifestyle advertisements that Chinese marketing departments tend to hold in such high regard [mainly because it makes them feel important rather than that being the only thing that works here] and embracing a more down-to-earth approach – albeit with a celebratory – though I do have to say I have a nagging feeling it could also be a sign that clients are not only becoming even more skeptical as regards the value of communication, but also even cheaper.