Marketing Ms. Davis & Mr. White

It's too bad they couldn't get in with an athletic wear company or something like that, but that seems to be taken up by all of the other sports who wear them for competition and can flaunt the logos to huge crowds and lengthly sportscasts with huge audiences. Lulu Lemon would be great, but they don't really advertise and they don't need to anyway so that's probably out (although getting free product for training wouldn't be such a bad idea lol). Being some sort of Brand Ambassador with a company like that, where a healthy active lifestyle is promoted, would work for them. Have to admit though, if that happened I'd love to see Virtue and Moir score it solely for the Canadian aspect.

I watched the beginning and end of the Queer Eye show. Perfect! What great PR not only for John and Silvia, but for skating. Get Marlie on one of those, please!

dorispulaski said:

Meryl & Charlie have a reasonably good fan base in Japan, and Japan is Charlie's favorite place to visit, but I don't know whether Japanese advertisers would be interested in them, except perhaps as representative non-Japanese tourists or something? How often are non-Asian athletes featured in Japanese advertising?

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Don't forget that Toyota showcased V/M and their ice dancing in a commercial for the Japanese market.

I think figure skating shows should take hint from Cirque de Soleil. There needs to be more innovation in lighting and staging effects. Skaters should be encouraged to skate on differently-shaped ice surface (e.g., bowl-shaped ice) in the way that skiers do. And they should be hung from the ceiling and fly around in the air during the show.

Regarding Meryl & Charlie, if they (successfully) did something weird, it would be interesting. It's not at all a realistic suggestion, but how about a cooking show on the ice? They could make a dish and skate in between stages of cooking.

Brian Boitano already did the Skater Cooking Show

Why not just put in some artificial ice and have them skate a # at the Dancing With The Stars Finale.

Re: Davis and White lack chemistry: Hey, they grew up together, so of course they feel more like brother/sister than a romantic couple. Their chemistry lies in their talent and respect for each other.

Maybe something dramatic--a judging controversy or whatnot--will happen at the Olympics to bring them more notice. Anyway, as has been said here, any major promotional push would have to wait until they finish their amateur skating careers, and hopefully that will not happen anytime soon. (Olympia: you are such a good writer)

Penny said:

Re: Davis and White lack chemistry: Hey, they grew up together, so of course they feel more like brother/sister than a romantic couple. Their chemistry lies in their talent and respect for each other.

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This may be a real reason why Davis and White have such a complete lack of chemistry, but Virtue and Moir also grew up together and yet they have chemistry in spades - it practically oozes out of their every pore. So I don't know that Davis and White's lack of chemistry can be completely attributed to growing up together.

Isn't IMG supposed to be the "it" sports' agent company for skaters? I wonder why they haven't managed to make D/W more well-known in the US, seeing as how they're Olympic silver-medalists. I think it shouldn't matter that D/W don't have a romantic aura, or chemistry, or whatever. Isn't it IMG's responsibility to figure out a way to market them to the masses? Like it's been mentioned already, just keeping a webpage and facebook page isn't enough. Did they really need an agent for that?

Like I said Before Charlie is not attracted to Meryl, Scott is attracted to Tessa even though he is not dating her now although from what i`ve read they did date when they were teenagers, Andrew Poje is also attracted to Kaitlyn even though he is not dating both of these guys are with partners they could envision having a romantic relationship with if they were not business partners, Charlie was never attracted to Meryl skating or no skating.

romanoff81 said:

Scott is attracted to Tessa even though he is not dating her now although from what i`ve read they did date when they were teenagers, Andrew Poje is also attracted to Kaitlyn even though he is not dating both of these guys are with partners they could envision having a romantic relationship with if they were not business partners

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You know this how?

I've never been good at reading minds - you must have special powers of discernment.

I don't see why Meryl and Charlie need to have a romance going on in order to pitch a product. Michelle Kwan wasn't dating anyone when she got a million dollar contract to sell Chevrolets.

What about Disney? (Meryl does look like Belle Put her in a yellow dress and let her open theme parks.) Several figure skaters have had gigs with Disney.

Kind of sad if figure skating has fallen so far off the radar that even Mickey Mouse isn't interested any more.

One of the great romantic couples in recent years in film was Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. There was never even a rumor of any romance between them in real life, but they summoned up a good deal of effervescence in Pretty Woman and (my favorite of the two) Runaway Bride. In film and in ads, something doesn't have to exist. It has to be implied convincingly. The viewer does the rest. This can be done with lighting and staging, with sleight of hand and illusion. Actually, going by sheer physical appearance, Meryl and Charlie are the best hopes that American skating has for some sort of promotional presence--with the possible exception of Alissa. All three of these talented skaters have not just looks but glamor, in the word's old meaning of something that is capable of bewitching. The camera loves them. I hope that some smart person can figure out a way to put this glamor to use.

(And I completely agree that Virtue and Moir have it, too!)

Because people like romance. They expect it even. It's comforting for some reason. If you look at popular culture, it is vanishingly rare for any narrative to have the main male and female characters in a platonic friendship if they're not related. Sooner or later, usually sooner, the flirting starts. Then it gets worse. Duets do disproportionately well on the charts. And then there are the shippers (fans of a specific coupling in a narrative). I don't really get it personally, but I totally recognize that the American public reacts like this to any male/female pairing. People want their fairytale endings.

And it's not as if Davis/White shied away from portraying romance on ice. They tried, bless their little hearts, with the Phantom of the Opera program. The effect was rather flat.

This makes the team a hard sell for marketers again. People find it off-putting, upsetting even, that these two can work together for so long and be so friendly without it getting romantic. It's weird and wrong and suspicious and Communistic! It would actually work better if one or both of them came out as gay. But this is how the American public and marketers work: they want people in neatly labeled and prefabricated boxes. Davis/White don't fit, so marketers are going to chuck them.

It's just one in a long list of things about Davis/White that make them unconventional. You can try to turn it into a selling point, or at least something with which to grab attention. Maybe they can become the poster children for how men and women can have platonic friendships. But you add it to all the other weirdness, it might be a bit much for the corporate types to swallow.

heyang, that's a great idea. Skating with the stars already has ice, though. In fact they used that ice making company that did the ice for Nationals in Greensboro to make ice in the middle of Foxwoods resort.

And yes, IMO an agent is supposed to find you jobs; if you're not a perfect immediate fit with every company under the sun, it's more important that you have an agent. I also thought IMG was supposed to be the premier agent for skaters; looks like when they had a product that sold itself they were OK, but the agent quoted was just

Here's an idea...hair. Davis and White have great hair; some hair company could pick them up - shampoo, hair fixtures, curl activators, wave activators, color, mositurizer, streaking they have it = hair's the answer. come on clairol.

Skater Boy said:

Here's an idea...hair. Davis and White have great hair; some hair company could pick them up - shampoo, hair fixtures, curl activators, wave activators, color, mositurizer, streaking they have it = hair's the answer. come on clairol.

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I noticed that and dont forget toothpaste commercials

Overall, ice dance is not popular compared to singles and to a certain degree, even pairs are better (because they are called pairs and sound more athletic). I swear, when I started watching figure skating I just skipped ice dance for years. It just seemed boring at the first glance and the word dance seems totally unsportslike and doesn't sound "exciting" at all (namely, ice dancers don't fall often and will very rarely pull a scary Dube/Davison). I do like it now, but that's still not to say I would buy any product, any product because of Meryl and Charlie, or any other ice dance couples.

Meryl is also a little over the top, look and otherwise...but I stand by my words, dancing with the stars is the only way to market them. They should go on at the same season too, which makes this great partner/rivalry narrative. Also, local Michigan brands. Cars?

at people who think Davis/White will be getting any national ad campaigns for major products like haircare, toothpaste and cars. Alissa Czisny, the US champion in the only discipline Americans even vaguely care about, got half a second in a Chrysler ad where the focus was definitely not on her. She never even got to go into her full Biellmann position in the ad, which irritated me to no end. And Czisny is about the most photogenic skater US skating has ever produced. Please, people, try to remember just how far out of favor figure skating has fallen in the US, and even when it was in favor, ice dancing was the kid no one wanted at their table.

Say you run the marketing department for a toothpaste company. Why would you want Davis/White to be in your ad campaigns? Yes, they're top athletes in a glamorous sport. But one that's almost never on American TV any more (and when it is the ratings are in the toilets), and a sport that generates almost zero internet buzz or even traditional media interest. You can pick athletes from a hundred other sports that are more talked about, whose fans will do the advertising for you, whose recurring presence in the popular consciousness with reinforce your ad campaign.

Let's consider the last skater to get a major national ad campaign that actually focuses on him: Johnny Weir and his collaboration with MAC cosmetics. Johnny didn't get that campaign just by being a great skater. He got it by tirelessly promoting himself as a brand on a reality show, attending all kinds of fashion shows and events, appearing in fashion shoots in major magazines, moonlighting as a model in fashion shows even, and generally getting himself both completely enmeshed in the industry while keeping his name famous with the general public. And he did all this for a few years before he got the campaign.

Neither Davis nor White has shown even the tiniest bit of ability to grab attention like Johnny did, nor the inclination to do so. No, to get them in any major ads , you'd have to focus on the fact that they're very likely going to be Olympic medalists again. In which case it's less about selling things using Davis/White and more about using the Olympics. But that limits your options. To even mention the word Olympics, a company has to be an official sponsor of the games. What Davis/White's people might tell those companies is that unlike athletes in almost any other sport, Davis/White are virtually guaranteed to compete in the next Olympics, and they're almost certian to get on the podium. Why not bet on a sure thing? And hopefully, the contract gets signed before the marketers realize that with such predictability also comes a total lack of suspense and general viewer involvement in the sport.

Serious Business said:

at people who think Davis/White will be getting any national ad campaigns for major products like haircare, toothpaste and cars. Alissa Czisny, the US champion in the only discipline Americans even vaguely care about, got half a second in a Chrysler ad where the focus was definitely not on her. She never even got to go into her full Biellmann position in the ad, which irritated me to no end. And Czisny is about the most photogenic skater US skating has ever produced. Please, people, try to remember just how far out of favor figure skating has fallen in the US, and even when it was in favor, ice dancing was the kid no one wanted at their

Say you run the marketing department for a toothpaste company. Why would you want Davis/White to be in your ad campaigns? Yes, they're top athletes in a glamorous sport. But one that's almost never on American TV any more (and when it is the ratings are in the toilets), and a sport that generates almost zero internet buzz or even traditional media interest. You can pick athletes from a hundred other sports that are more talked about, whose fans will do the advertising for you, whose recurring presence in the popular consciousness with reinforce your ad campaign.

Let's consider the last skater to get a major national ad campaign that actually focuses on him: Johnny Weir and his collaboration with MAC cosmetics. Johnny didn't get that campaign just by being a great skater. He got it by tirelessly promoting himself as a brand on a reality show, attending all kinds of fashion shows and events, appearing in fashion shoots in major magazines, moonlighting as a model in fashion shows even, and generally getting himself both completely enmeshed in the industry while keeping his name famous with the general public. And he did all this for a few years before he got the campaign.

Neither Davis nor White has shown even the tiniest bit of ability to grab attention like Johnny did, nor the inclination to do so. No, to get them in any major ads , you'd have to focus on the fact that they're very likely going to be Olympic medalists again. In which case it's less about selling things using Davis/White and more about using the Olympics. But that limits your options. To even mention the word Olympics, a company has to be an official sponsor of the games. What Davis/White's people might tell those companies is that unlike athletes in almost any other sport, Davis/White are virtually guaranteed to compete in the next Olympics, and they're almost certian to get on the podium. Why not bet on a sure thing? And hopefully, the contract gets signed before the marketers realize that with such predictability also comes a total lack of suspense and general viewer involvement in the sport.

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This says it all. It's too bad, but it's just not going to happen on a level big enough to make them household names and superstars.

Serious Business said:

Alissa Czisny, the US champion in the only discipline Americans even vaguely care about, got half a second in a Chrysler ad where the focus was definitely not on her. She never even got to go into her full Biellmann position in the ad, which irritated me to no end.

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"Its the journey, not the destination."

Actually, I think she got about four seconds, starting with when they first showed her feet.

By the way, some local outfit is suing Chrysler over the theme of that ad, "Imported from Detroit," on the grounds that Chrysler corporate headquarters is actually in Auburn Hills, Michigan. (Davis and White should forget endorsements and become lawyers.)