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Did you know that went into overdrive in the 80′s? Ok, probably you did… but did you also know that the greatest Promoter of all time Don King played a key role? What many Boxing fans might not know is that Don King in the 80′s also promoted Michael Jackson… and was the key figure in landing Jackson a contract with Pepsi.
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By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: Tuesday, November 16, 1993
NEW YORK – Essentially two kinds of people existed in the ‘80s: Coke drinkers and Pepsi drinkers. And if you loved Michael Jackson, you had good reason to fall into the latter group.
In November 1983, one year after “Thriller” was released, Jackson (with his brothers) and PepsiCo struck a $5 million partnership that would shatter the record for a celebrity endorsement deal, link the two entities for a decade and set the bar for every integrated marketing campaign that would follow.
Jackson’s managers approached Jay Coleman, founder/CEO of Entertainment Marketing & Communications International, who would eventually broker all three Jackson-Pepsi deals, with the idea of partnering Jackson with a major brand at a firm asking price. Coleman, who had already orchestrated Jovan fragrances’ landmark sponsorship of the Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You tour, first proposed the idea to Coca-Cola.
“They gave it serious consideration yet couldn’t make that leap of faith,” Coleman says. “They saw anything they would do with Michael as a more targeted, ethnic campaign.”
Coca-Cola offered a $1 million deal that was rejected, and the Jacksons moved on to PepsiCo, where then-CEO Roger Enrico was looking for a big idea to launch his youth-targeted “New Generation” campaign for the brand. “The goal was to make Pepsi look young and Coke look old, and Michael Jackson was in fact the choice of that generation — he was already the King of Pop, even though he hadn’t declared it,” Coleman says.
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With the stress of child molestation accusations forcing him to cancel a world tour and seek treatment for a dependency on painkillers, Michael Jackson has given corporate America another powerful argument against using high-profile celebrities to endorse its products.
As the latest entertainment icon to suffer from public fascination, Mr. Jackson joins other stars whose recent difficulties resulted in various forms of public or corporate scorn: Magic Johnson, for his disclosure that he had contracted the virus that causes AIDS; Michael Jordan, who fought a perception that he had a gambling problem; Madonna, whose video work has outraged some for its sexual, ethnic and religious themes, and Burt Reynolds, for divorcing his wife of five years, Loni Anderson.
But experts disagreed whether the woes of Mr. Jackson, whose lucrative relationship with Pepsico Inc. ended on Sunday, would deter other major companies from seeking athletes and entertainers for new advertising and promotional deals.
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