Mixing Fame and Food : Lasorda Will Join the Celebrity March to the Grocery Shelf

It’s word association time. Ready? Go!

Paul Newman. Actor? Phyllis Diller. Comedienne? Tommy Lasorda. Manager?

Wrong. Wrong. And wrong, again.

How about Paul Newman--salad dressing king? And Phyllis Diller--canned chili queen? Then, by early next spring, Tommy Lasorda, the newest name in refrigerated spaghetti sauce?

As a way of profiting from their celebrity status, some of the entertainment world’s best-known celebrities are turning--in growing numbers--to the world of food-making and food-marketing.

Just about everyone knows about Jimmy Dean Sausage. And who can forget Billy Beer named for President Jimmy Carter’s late brother? Or how about the Reggie candy bar named for baseball slugger Reggie Jackson? More recently, the Los Angeles area’s most famous chef, Wolfgang Puck, put his name on a line of frozen desserts and pizzas. And now, one of the most familiar faces in baseball--Tommy Lasorda--wants to become an equally familiar face at the grocery store.

Bear in mind, these are not just celebrities who are pitching products. Some are lending their names--and often their faces--for the product packaging. But others, like Paul Newman and Jimmy Dean, are personally investing big bucks in food companies. Likewise, Lasorda is personally investing in Lasorda Foods Inc., the new company formed to make and market the sauce. (Neither Lasorda nor the company will say how much he invested or how much he will be paid as spokesman.)

The shared thinking among all of these celebrities: Famous names can give food products an edge at the grocery store. Of course, the products have to taste good to keep customers coming back.

“People will buy it the first time because my name is on it,” said Lasorda, manager of the Dodgers. “But if they don’t like it, do you think they’ll buy it again?”

There are mixed views on the marketability of products with celebrity names on the labels. Some experts say the food companies take a big risk by associating their products with a celebrity’s name. “What happens when Tommy Lasorda gets fired?” posed Steve Weinstein, editor of Progressive Grocer, a Westport, Conn.-based industry trade magazine. “Who’s going to buy it then?”

What’s more, Lasorda is a manager and not a high-profile baseball player, said Matt Merola, the New York-based personal manager for baseball star Reggie Jackson, who lined up Jackson’s association with the Reggie candy bar. “This,” said Merola, “will be a tough one for Lasorda to pull off.”

Hogwash, responded Dave Stewart, a marketing professor at USC. “Tommy Lasorda is first and foremost a credible spokesman for Italian food. If nothing else, he looks like the kind of guy who would eat it.” What’s more, said Stewart, even if Tommy Lasorda left baseball, the spaghetti sauce could still sell with the help of an an ad campaign that kept his name before the public.

Indeed, the Dodgers’ skipper said in an interview Monday that he’ll be a terrific spaghetti sauce pitchman. “You know,” said Lasorda, “if I did something wrong, and as a punishment, the judge sentenced me to eat spaghetti three times a day for the rest of my life, that judge would be doing me a favor.”

Lasorda said his spaghetti sauce recipe didn’t come from the test kitchen of a giant food company. Rather, it’s the recipe that his late mother, Carmella, taught his wife, Jo, when they were married 38 years ago. “If I come home feeling low after a bad game,” said Lasorda, “Jo fixes me a plate of it.”

That may all sound nice and homey, but the company behind it, Atlanta-based Lasorda Foods Inc., has some high-powered food marketing experience. Hank Cardello, president and chief executive of the company, was most recently president of Sunkist soft drink operations. The firm plans to spend more than $1 million on the Southern California introduction of this $2.99 product--and eventually take it national, Cardello said.

The sauce will be made in Southern California and sold “fresh” in supermarket refrigerator cases. Sales of “fresh” instead of frozen or canned food products have been increasing in recent years.

As for the use of Lasorda’s name, well, Douglas N. Sheley, chairman of Lasorda Foods, concedes, “it’s just the marketing ploy to introduce a high-quality product that will eventually stand on its own.”

Or will it? Well, Vons Grocery Co.--which has not yet decided whether it will carry the brand in its supermarkets--says celebrity food products are rarely big sellers. “The initial sales are usually high because people recognize the name,” said Vickie Sanders, a Vons spokeswoman. “But only a handful stay on the shelves after six months.”

One such success story is Jimmy Dean Sausage. Perhaps no one has more successfully mixed a career as an entertainer and a food maker than Jimmy Dean. After all, the country singer, who’s best known for the 1961 song “Big Bad John,” learned all about hog breeding as a young boy in Plainview, Tex. Nearly 20 years ago, he built a sausage plant there that quickly expanded into a multimillion-dollar company. Dean was the sole owner of the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. until he sold the majority of it to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984. He still holds a minority ownership in the firm.

“This isn’t just something I stuck my name on and walked away from,” Dean said in an interview last week. “If you’re going to put your name on something, you have to be personally involved.” Indeed, Dean said there are weeks when he still spends up to 50 hours working on the sausage business.

But the success Dean has had in marketing his sausage may have actually surpassed his career as an entertainer, said Stewart, the USC professor. “Jimmy Dean may be more famous now for his sausage than for his singing.”

Certainly, no one would accuse Paul Newman of being more famous for his salad dressing and popcorn than for his acting. But six years ago, Newman--who is also regarded in Hollywood circles as a gourmet cook--established the “Newman’s Own” label. Newman underwrote the start-up costs of the company--which donates all of its profits to charity.

While the company began with salad dressing, it has since branched to popcorn and spaghetti sauce. And it will soon add a line of lemonade called Newman’s Own Roadside Virgin Lemonade, said David Kalman, vice president of the New York company Advantage Food Marketing, which markets the Newman brand.

“Maybe a person picks up a bottle because they see his picture on it,” said Kalman, “but that’s not why they continue to buy it.” Kalman said the company’s 1988 sales of about $75 million were up 25% from the year before.

But not everyone has Newman’s luck.

Phyllis Diller, for example, came out with a line of chili last year, but sales did poorly. “It just didn’t work,” said a spokesman for Stokes-Ellis, the company that originally packaged the brand. “It was too expensive to market,” said the spokesman, so the company dropped the line after just eight months.

Now, however, Diller has found a Los Angeles company--Morehouse Foods Inc.--that plans to package it and pump some money into marketing the brand. “Once they start marketing it things will pick up,” said Joey Herrick, whose Dallas-based company, Class Products, links celebrities with product endorsements.

Similarly, when the Los Angeles area’s best-known chef, Wolfgang Puck, introduced a line of frozen desserts last year, sales were so poor that the company stopped making it after less than one year. “They were too pricey,” said Bob Koblin, president of Wolfgang Puck Food Co. But, hoping to bring down the product’s costs, the company may reintroduce the frozen desserts next year with less expensive ingredients, Koblin said. Meanwhile, Puck’s company has introduced a line of frozen pizzas, Wolfgang Puck’s Original California Pizza.

Sometimes--despite the regional popularity of a celebrity--the food line never gets off the ground nationally. Take the Reggie bar, for example. The caramel and nut-filled candy bar, named for the popular baseball star Reggie Jackson, posted sales of $10 million when it was introduced in 1978.

But sales stalled outside the New York market, where Jackson was then a member of the New York Yankees. By late 1981, Nabisco stopped making the bar. “It sold well in New York,” said a Nabisco spokeswoman, “but it did not reach the national sales volume necessary to make it a strong line.”

And who can forget Billy Beer? Well, the folks at West End Brewing Co. in Utica, N.Y., would certainly like to. They were one of several companies to take a turn at brewing Billy Beer back in 1978, when the president’s outspoken brother was often pictured with beer in hand. But a company spokesman, who said that he would love to forget all about Billy Beer, noted that sales “never amounted to much.”

Guitar Center Picks Ad Agency in L.A.

The sidewalk of its flagship store on Hollywood Boulevard is to rock ‘n’ roll stars what the front walk at Mann’s Chinese Theater is to movie stars.

A spot to cement their place in history.

And now, the Guitar Center--best known for its “Rock Walk” that features hand and foot prints of such pop stars as Stevie Wonder and Eddie Van Halen--has named a Los Angeles ad agency to handle its $2-million advertising business.

Italia & Associates will be the center’s first ad agency. And Italia has big plans to broaden the image of the Chatsworth-based chain that primarily sells guitars, drum sets and keyboards to rock bands.

“It’s not just rock bands who shop for this sort of equipment,” said Carmen Italia, president of Italia & Associates. “We hope to broaden the market to people who play jazz, blues and other types of music.”

A ‘Berry Good’ Deal for Davis Johnson

Here’s an ad agency that has happily found itself in a $1.5-million jam.

That’s jam as in jelly. And the brand belongs to Knott’s Berry Farm. Beginning this week, the Los Angeles ad firm Davis, Johnson, Mogul & Colombatto--which already creates ads for the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park--will unveil a new ad campaign to help bolster sales of the Knott’s brand of jellies and jams.

“Competition from all sides has helped make this inactive advertiser an active advertiser,” said Mark Davis, who was recently named general manger of the ad agency. The ads--which will appear in all media--are primarily aimed at taking market share away from Smucker’s, Davis said. The slogan: “Berry, berry, berry good.”

Radio Guide Is First of Its Kind for L.A.

It bugged Philip J. Marino something awful. For years, he drove all over the Los Angeles area selling telephone equipment. But the self-described radio addict never knew what programs to expect on the car radio.

Now he’s done something about it. This week, Marino is introducing Radio Guide, a Los Angeles-area radio guide roughly equivalent to TV Guide. The free, 32-page guide--with a circulation of 50,000--comes out twice monthly and includes daily listings of radio programs on area radio stations. It will be distributed at outlets ranging from bookstores to dry cleaners.

But like most new publications, Radio Guide is having a tough time finding advertisers. “You always have to prove to advertisers that you’ll be around for a while, and that’s not always so easy,” said Marino, who is personally underwriting the costs of the guide.

Most of the advertisers in the first issue are local radio stations such as KABC Talkradio and KCRW National Public Radio. But Marino said he soon hopes to attract more diverse advertisers such as electronics firms.

Eventually, Marino said, he wants to take the publication national. And he isn’t really worried about a full year of his own research that failed to locate even one other comprehensive radio guide anywhere in the country. “That just shows me there’s an opportunity,” said Marino. “Remember, at one time there were no computers--and no Mrs. Field’s Cookies.”