Simon Doonan’s column in today’s New York Observer poses the question of product unplacement.  A world where luxury brands send their competitors products to celebrities and trendsetters who they deem undesirable and who they do not want to be photographed donning their own brands but rather their competitors products.  A  sort of pro-active product slander.   Mr Doonan cleverly includes himself along with Jersey Shore’s Snooki in imaginative luxury brand snubs including Gucci who crafts Doonan’s fave designer shoe and who because he was forced to buy his latest pair retail must deem him an “undesirable”, and who according to Doonan must surely be sending him a box full of Crocs to win over his favor.  Right! I bet several pairs of those very expensive Gucci loafers are at this minute on their way to Mr. Doonan’s door via messenger thanking him for the great product plug!

Product placement is a craft and while aligining our clients brands with trendsters and celebrities whose image marry those of their brand are ultimate goals, resorting to “unplacing” product is not a trend I see caching on by publicists.  The ultimate goal in celebrity product placement is to make the product shine and become covetable by millions of consumers attaching the brand to someone in the news and yes someone they would like to see themselves like.   Our goal is to transcend whether the reality star, hollywood it girl, leading box-office sensation, sports star, etc.. is “in or out” and focus the spotlight on the client’s product — especially so since consumers opinions in our “instant messaging” world are switching in an instant!   Can bad product placement or the wrong product endorsement hurt a brand, driving their sales down?  If you asked me this several years ago, I would have vehemently said yes.  Should we attempt to place attention on our products with endorsements by people whose actions don’t coincide with our idea of appropriate behavior or who even share a similar preceived taste or style level?  I still say no.  But today’s consumers are hitching their wagons to “faces” not only for what they look like and how they act,  but because of deeper, emotional attachments — because they admire or are intrigued by something they did.   Ask a group of random women about Snooki and just as many will find her style deplorable as will find her sudden rise to fame admirable – for god’s sake she was featured in fashion spread in Harper’s Bazaar — and see themselves coveting the brands she covets as their own path to their own “15 minutes of fame”.  Coupled with the continuing decline in the economic environment , consumers are more discerning as to how and where they spend their precious dollars.  I steer my clients in focusing on what is working — not wasting valuable time and resources on trying to create publicity for their competition – because really its a 50-50 crap shoot as to what is  seen as “bad” or undesirable today and what will be the next best thing to covet tomorrow….