Finding #12: Emily Jacobsen: Jersey Shore's Snooki: The Typhoid Mary of the Luxury Branding World

From the article:

A dress, shoe, bag or pair of sunglasses worn by the right "it girl" celebrity can bring-in hundreds, thousands, or tens-of thousands of orders from wanna-be consumers. Fashion marketers covet a good celebrity product placement.

But it seems that Snooki, a character from the MTV "reality" show Jersey Shore is not a celebrity many luxury brands want to be associated with.

So, why has the pseudo-celeb been seen sporting un-told numbers of Coach purses and bags on the worn-red carpet circuit?

Well, it seems it wasn't Coach who was sending her those bags.

It was Coach's competitors.

In a highly nasty campaign, competitors are sending Snooki luxury goods hoping she'll be seen wearing them, and HURT the competitor's brand through negative brand association.

This "Unbranding" or "Preemptive Product Placement" is highly creative. Who would have thought of going beyond traditional marketing and using reverse psychology to associate competitors' brands with trashy celebrities? Nice? No. Genius? Yes.

http://daveibsen.typepad.com/5_blogs_before_lunch/2010/08/snooki-from-the-jersey-shore-the-typhoid-mary-of-the-luxury-branding-world.html