Sneaker Firms, Pitchmen Not Always in Step

Perhaps no single manufacturing category has been so enamored of celebrities as the makers of sneakers.

Among the earliest was Converse, which signed on Earvin (Magic) Johnson as its spokesman in 1979, when Johnson first entered the National Basketball Assn. But shortly after Nike built an entire shoe line around Michael Jordan--and made him the focus of its advertising--Johnson and his agent grew increasingly miffed with Converse for not placing him in a similar light.

The relationship was further strained in November, 1991, when Johnson revealed that he had contracted the AIDS virus and was retiring from basketball. Although Converse was among the first sponsors to voice its support for Johnson--and has donated money to AIDS causes--it has not used Johnson in any ads since February, 1990.

“I can understand why they’d do something like that if my popularity had gone down,” Johnson said recently in an interview. “But my popularity has only gone up.”

AIDS has nothing to do with the decision, Converse executives say.

“It was important for Converse to establish a new stable of athletes,” said Joanna Jacobson, senior vice president of marketing at Converse. “Magic Johnson and Larry Bird had been the story of the 1980s. But we knew we had to establish new relationships with players of the ‘90s.”

That is why Converse recently has signed on Kevin Johnson of the Phoenix Suns and Larry Johnson of the Charlotte Hornets, she said.

Recently, Nike has tried to show the human side of endorsers in its ads. One ad features outspoken basketball star Charles Barkley flatly declaring, “I am not a role model.”

“Nike has learned you have to show celebrities as they really are, or consumers will question the integrity of everyone involved,” said Scott Bedbury, director of advertising at Nike. “You do not sugarcoat Charles Barkley.”

But one maker of athletic shoes is so turned off by celebrity endorsers that its chief executive has set an across-the-board policy that his company never again hire any.

“If you want the best shoe for yourself, you don’t really give a hoot if Michael Jordan wears it,” said James S. Davis, president of New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc. “We’d rather put our money into our factories than into the hands of celebrities.”

So serious is New Balance about not using celebrity endorsers that last year it ran a print ad that featured a picture of one of its shoes under this headline: “Endorsed by no one.”