Celebrity Endorsements
When you see a celebrity pitching a product in an advertisement, right off the bat you know they are being well compensated for the appearance. And even though there are laws that are supposed to keep some sort of reality to the endorsement we all know they are bending the truth. But to what degree? Phil Mushnick, of the New York Post, writes about the blatant hypocrisy of some celebrity athlete endorsers.
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But Abdul-Jabbar’s pretty good at taking dough to endorse what he righteously disavows. In his 1990 book, “Kareem,” he brags that his long and mostly injury-free pro career was the result of his superior instincts, those that told him to eschew high-top sneakers: “I also never wore hightops. From the beginning, I just felt that I could move and cut easier unbound and in low-cuts. “And I seem to know instinctively. . . that the skeletal system is built to absorb shock and if you bind and immobilize the ankle, the stress just transfers up to the next available joint, which is the knee, the great nemesis of the basketball ball player. “But I was Galileo out there on this, alone in my approach for a long time.” Galileo, my foot. Three years later, Abdul-Jabbar, was appearing in TV ads pushing Reebok’s Shaquille O’Neal-model sneakers —high-top sneakers. |
http://specialsections.nypost.com/news/nypost/tvweek/20060709/p12_s1.htm