Promotional Injuries
When you use celebrities to represent your brand, you always run a risk. In some cases you run the risk that they’ll do something your brand isn’t proud of – baseball players that use steroids, football 
players thrown in jail, etc. Recently a couple of brands have had their campaigns injured by injured spokespeople.
Buick is running a promotion called, “Tee Off With Tiger” where a fan who guesses Tiger’s score throughout the season has a chance to win his services as a caddy at Torry Pines, the course where he just won the U.S. Open in a dramatic playoff. Unfortunately, right after that exact playoff, Tiger announced he will have season-ending knee surgery on his left knee and had two stress fractures in his left tibia. The promotion has been called off and Tiger won’t be able to carry much over the next few months, however, I’m sure Nike, Buick, Gatorade, and his other sponsors are hoping he’ll still help to carry their brands.
Another promotion that has been causing quite a stir in New York has also had to be readjusted due to an injury. However, State Farm’s “Call Your Shot” promotion may have been saved by the injury. The promotion caused an uproar among Yankees fans as the promotion called for the winner of the promotion to tell David Ortiz where to hit a home run in the State Farm Home Run Derby. Yankees fans weren’t too keen on Ortiz, a Red Sock, coming into their ballpark and imitating Babe Ruth in ‘the house Ruth built.’ Only a few weeks after the firestorm hit The New York Times, Ortiz hurt his wrist and will no longer be able to participate in the promotion. The promotion will go on however, as the lucky winner will now get to ask the home run derby finalists to hit a homerun to win a Chevy Tahoe hybrid.
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