GREEN AND GOLD
AFTER leading his team’s re markable resurgence, Brett Favre is back in the sponsorship limelight.
The Green Bay Packer is an old-timer by NFL standards. He first hit his peak in the mid-1990s, when he led his team to the Super Bowl two years in a row and won the title once.
Marketers flocked to him along with football fans, and he hawked everything from toothpaste to heartburn medicine. He was so popular that the Farrelly brothers cast him as himself in the 1998 hit “There’s Something About Mary.”
But the team’s winning ways came to an end and Favre, while still popular with Packers fans, wasn’t the shining star of the NFL. In recent years, he was eclipsed on the gridiron and on Madison Avenue by younger QBs – Southern good ‘ole boy Peyton Manning and stud Tom Brady – and most people figured he was headed for retirement.
Then Favre caught fire, leading his team to a 10-1 hot streak before a bruised elbow sidelined him during Thursday night’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
His sponsors couldn’t be happier. Favre has been spotted a lot in a TV ad for Wrangler jeans, where he’s shown playing touch football with a group of friends. Wrangler, which bought the airtime before Favre’s hot streak began, is benefiting from all the attention.
“The planets are really aligned,” said Kevin Spencer, Wrangler’s marketing and communications director. “It’s just a great juxtaposition when we’re running spots.”
Spencer said the company decided it wanted Favre and signed him before the start of the season even though he seemed headed for his twilight years.
“We’ve been very interested in him for a while whether he would continue to play or not just because he had so much character that lined up with our brand,” Spencer said.
Sports marketing veteran Robert Tuchman said his corporate clients are looking more at Favre for speaking engagements and appearances, where he commands upwards of $50,000.
Holly M. Sanders
Hands’ plan
Terra Firma boss Guy Hands is getting ripped around the music business after word leaked earlier this week that he wants to slash the amount of money newly acquired EMI spends on industry trade organizations.
However behind closed doors, other cash-strapped major labels acknowledge that Hands’ plan, while poorly presented, may not be a bad idea.
Sources say Hands caused a stir by announcing a desire to cut in half the estimated $25 million EMI forks over to the Washington D.C.-based Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), the London-based British Phonographic Industry (BPI), and international lobbying group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
He also wants to explore merging the two trade groups outside the U.S., and spreading greater responsibility between the newly combined entity and the RIAA.
EMI, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warner Music Group all contribute money to the organizations with their “dues” determined by market share. The record companies use the trade groups to push legislative agendas, sue consumers and Web startups who illegally distribute their music on the Internet, and work with law enforcement to battle organized piracy rings.
While the industry has long pondered consolidating the organizations in a bid to cut costs, there’s been a reluctance to do so given their heavy agendas. Settlement money from digital copyright infringement has become a recurring source of found money – funds that labels are loath to jeopardize by cutting funding and restructuring the groups that bring in that cash. Also, the industry has a number of important digital rights negotiations ongoing in both the U.S. and Europe that the trade groups oversee.
But with EMI’s instance on a shake-up, insiders at other labels say that the idea of reworking the trade groups is a strong possibility. They may have little choice if the other option is paying more for their services.
Brian Garrity
Hit list
There’s still another month to go but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to begin picking the best and worst in 2007. AOL Money & Finance plans to launch its second annual Best and Worst in Money tomorrow that will allow users to vote for 16 awards from most annoying money personality to company of the year.
Mark Cuban and Martha Stewart are up for most annoying while Whole Foods and Jet Blue have been nominated for making the year’s dumbest business move.
Falling house prices are up against Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman and the private equity boom as the year’s top business story. Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Michael Vick duke it out for the celeb most- likely to lose it all next year. Other categories include: hottest chain restaurant, best CEO departure and most hated company.
Zachery Kouwe