Springsteen’s DUI Arrest Highlights Risk / Reward Discussion With Influencer Marketing

BY ADAM GROSSMAN

For its past two Super Bowls, Jeep has leveraged celebrity partnerships as the center of its ads during the most watched single sporting event of the year. Its 2020 campaign featured Bill Murray while its 2021 campaign featured Bruce Springsteen. Jeep has used both ads in subsequent campaigns after the game.

One the most common reasons that companies want to partner with influencers and sports properties is to leverage the brand equity of a singer, actor, athlete, comedian, entertainer, or celebrity. Companies and properties are increasingly leveraging influencer partnerships to drive increases in brand engagement, sentiment, and / or awareness with customers and fans that they cannot achieve on their own.

Yet, influencer marketing comes with risk, particularly when that individual is involved in a negative situation. This has become an issue of increasing importance after Jeep decided to pull its commercial featuring Springsteen when information emerged about a November arrest for driving under the influence (DUI).

We previously examined a Super Bowl ad with similar dynamics with Gillette’s “Short Film” posted on YouTube as part of the company’s the best a man can be” campaign around the 2019 game. Derived from the company’s famous tagline “the best a man can get” and as a response to the #MeToo movement, Gillette’s goal was focused on “promoting positive, attainable, inclusive and healthy versions of what it means to be a man.”

When evaluating the impact of sports sponsorship, Block Six Analytics’ (B6A’s) Corporate Asset Valuation service examines the return on investment (ROI) and return on objectives (ROO) of a partnership. Gillette appeared to be focused on both with this campaign. Even though it has been the dominant player in the razor market for decades, Gillette has been facing increasing competition (Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club are examples of relatively new, well-funded competitors) with a core product that customers can find difficult to differentiate.

Brand sentiment and engagement are important for competing in this type of environment. Increasingly companies have turned to new marketing channels to help differentiate themselves from their competition while also increasing revenue and profits.

For Gillette, this meant cause marketing particularly as it aligned with its business goals of targeting women. Not only are women an increasingly large portion of the shaving market but also women have traditionally been significant purchasers of men’s razors as part of their families’ larger household spend. These factors are key reasons why Gillette has targeted women for years even if the company’s tagline has been “the best a man can get.”

Ironically companies in the past did not necessarily want to directly invest in the “cause” of cause marketing. More specifically, companies want to avoid becoming associated with controversial causes because taking any point-of-view on an issue could potentially alienate customers and depress revenues.

Gillette’s Super Bowl film created an interesting case study in this context. Gillette is a well-known sports sponsor, most famously for its Gillette Stadium naming rights partnership with the New England Patriots. The connection between the film’s timing and the Patriots has been discussed throughout social media channels.

Yet, the Patriots have little (if any) control over Gillette’s choices for its marketing campaigns while still having to understand their impact. In this case, Gillette’s film generated over 11 million views and almost 400 thousand more down votes than up votes even though it had only been on YouTube for three days at the time that B6A’s the original post was published. It also had several negative comments that were similar to criticisms on “virtue signaling” in conservative media.

Clearly taking a defined stance on gender equity is not morally similar to the handling of Springsteen’s arrest for a DUI. Similar to the Patriots and Gillette, however, both Jeep and the NFL are being referenced in articles, posts, and content about the singer just as the Patriots were mentioned with Gillette.

Jeep / Springsteen is the latest example of how influencers will likely continue to put partners, leagues, teams, and athletes at the center of conversations around controversial issues. Therefore, all entities that are considering influencer marketing need to proactively prepare for these dynamics. 

There is an argument to be made, however, that Jeep should have examined Springsteen’s background prior to featuring him in a commercial. This requires properties to take a proactive approach in monitoring the conversation around their partners because they will be directly impacted.

B6A’s Social Sentiment Analysis Platform (SAP) is designed to evaluate conversation in social media in both owned and earned accounts. In particular, SAP uses natural language processing (NLP) to “read” posts to determine positive or negative lifts while also examining the value of overall post engagement.

For Springsteen, Jeep could have used SAP to monitor conversation and see what customers and fans were saying about his arrest in November prior to launching the Super Bowl ad. By being proactive, sports properties will be best prepared to understand and deal with the different impacts of influencer marketing campaigns.