In Sunday’s Eagles/Cowboys contest tight end Brent Celek scored a touchdown in the third quarter, to celebrate he squared himself perfectly in the camera’s lens and posed a la the recent Captain Morgan’s Rum commercials with one leg up on an imaginary cask of rum. The No-Fun-League was less than pleased.
“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.”
On the field the celebration earned the Eagles a 15-yard penalty thanks to Jason Avant coming over and aiding in the celebration.
While Celek denied any knowledge of the ad campaign an ad executive handling the Captain Morgan account admitted that Celek WAS involved.
In hopes of raising brand awareness, Captain Morgan intended to offer lucrative charity contributions in exchange for each instance a player was caught on camera doing its pose during a game. The contributions were earmarked for the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund – a non-profit which helps retired NFL players with various hardships after leaving the game.
“The [ad campaign] has been going around internally for a while and [Celek] learned of the program through his contact at Diageo [Captain Morgan’s parent company],” said Glenn Lehrman, an account director at Rogers & Cowan, the Los Angeles-based firm that handles Captain Morgan promotions. “Brent said, ‘You know what, if I get the opportunity, I’m going to go ahead and do it.’ He sort of beat us to the punch, but we’re certainly not going to complain.”
Captain Morgan promised to donate $10,000 per pose during the regular season, $25,000 in the playoffs and $100,000 if someone were to do it in the Super Bowl. Celek was not fined for his actions but the NFL has promised that any subsequent “posing” by the players will lead to “substantial” fines.
“The issue is that players are specifically prohibited under our policies from wearing, displaying, promoting or otherwise conveying their support of a commercially identified product during a game while they’re on the field,” Aiello said. “Whether it’s rum or soft drinks or any other commercial product, that type of promotion is prohibited.”
[Yahoo!]
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