12
Nov
2009
League tells Captain Morgan to walk the plank
By ArtieFufkin
Brent Celek and his rum-loving counterpart (Image: SportsbyBrooks.com)
The NFL struck a blow against corporate shilling on the playing field today, in response to Eagles TE Brent Celek striking the Captain Morgan pose as his endzone celebration on Sunday night. As it turns out, Celek’s pose was the first in a larger marketing campaign planned by the popular spiced rum brand.
The promotional wizards at Captain Morgan were planning to announce that they would donate $10,000 to NFL Charity “Gridiron Greats” every time they got an NFL player to strike the pose on camera.
Unfortunately (and not surprisingly) for them that the NFL frowns on such guerilla marketing tactics from non-sponsors, and rained on the Captain’s parade before it even had a chance to get going:
“A company can’t pay a player to somehow promote it’s product on the field,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told Yahoo! Sports this week. “Every league has the same rule. … It’s come up before, companies trying to use our games and then players for ambush marketing purposes.”
So I guess that means Geico will have to scrap their plan of having the googly-eyed money stack call plays for the St. Louis Rams. Which probably would have actually helped them out.
[Via Yahoo!]
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