Michael Phelps: made cover of Sports Illustrated
The News of the World may have provided a clue to the origin of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ penchant for food endorsements.
The tabloid scooped the world with news of the sportsman’s reefer madness, helpfully backing up its story with a picture of Phelps partaking of a bong at a student party.
Phelps has fessed up and issued an apology to fans for engaging in “regrettable” and “inappropriate” behaviour. It could cost him big time. After the Olympics it was estimated he could make up to $100m in a lifetime of endorsements.
Kevin Adler, chief solutions officer at Engage Marketing in New York told the WSJ.com that it will definitely hit Phelps who is now earning around $5m a year via endorsements.
“There is no arguing that this will definitely impact his future earnings and marketing. The guy has been marketed as Captain America, and now this has materially damaged that image.”
Less Captain America and more like Kevin Smith’s weeds smoking Bluntman The spotlight is now on whether the various brands he has hookah’d up with (is there a hookah brand? Phelps would be a shoo-in for that one) are going to stick with him.
Among them are stonking big sandwich purveyor Subway (surely, a munchies solutions provider?), for which Phelps dropped McDonald’s. Subway is now deciding whether to go ahead and use the swimmer in its big Summer campaign.
There’s also Kelloggs, whose Frosted Flakes cereal boxes Phelps’ image adorned after his record-breaking Olympic gold medal haul in 2008.
Should the munchies strike after a big night on the pipe, Mike knows where to go.
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