Brush With Infamy Makes Products Shine
Peter Grueterich pondered a single question after he read in the newspaper last year that Bruno Magli shoes would be a key factor in the O.J. Simpson civil trial: “Is this good or bad for business?”
Grueterich, president of Bruno Magli America, soon had an answer.
This year, sales have increased by 50%.
“There’s no question that the trial contributed to the jump in sales,” he said. “It’s played a major role in increasing consumer awareness.”
Bruno Magli is just one of a number of firms that were caught in the maelstrom of the Simpson case. And although not every company’s sales figures have risen as much as Bruno Magli’s, many have benefited from their brush with the intoxicating melange of celebrity and infamy. These companies include: Aris Isotoner gloves--a bloody Aris glove was found outside Simpson’s house; Ford--Simpson drove a white Bronco during his infamous slow-speed chase; Sony electronics--Judge Lance A. Ito had a Sony monitor prominently displayed on his desk during the trial; and Identigene--the private firm does DNA testing.
The fact that a number of businesses attribute increased sales to the Simpson case represents a significant departure from previous highly publicized tragedies or disasters, crisis management consultants say. In the past, this was a firm’s worst nightmare, and the only questions were how long the bad news would last and how long it would depress sales.
“What’s different about the O.J. case are the celebrity element and the unprecedented news coverage--those are the X factors,” said Ian Mitroff, co-author of “The Essential Guide to Managing Corporate Crisis” and a professor at USC’s business school. “Obviously, when Exxon has an oil spill or Tylenol has to deal with tampering, it’s not going to do much for business. But the O.J. case was very unusual in that the negatives of the murder trial didn’t seem to taint the products associated with the case. That’s because of the celebrity, and because the news coverage was so extensive and so prolonged it seemed to desensitize many people to the actual murders.”
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The news coverage created tremendous “product awareness,” he said. The point of advertising is constant exposure, he said, and many companies received exposure “that was phenomenal . . . you couldn’t even buy it if you wanted to . . . but the scope of this went beyond just product awareness.”
Another anomalous aspect to the Simpson case--partly because the victims were slain in tony Brentwood--was the pervasive brand name-dropping that permeated the trial. Simpson wore a Rolex watch the night of the murders. He drove his Bentley to a fast-food restaurant. He wore $185 Bruno Magli shoes. He had his Callaway golf clubs with him.
“A lot of products, like the shoes and the gloves and the Bronco, are the kind of products within the reach of a wider class of people,” Mitroff said. “It’s easier to be associated with celebrity with these kinds of things than having to buy the same $80,000 Mercedes as some celebrity in the news. And even though O.J. was an accused murderer, he was still a celebrity. Some women marry guys on death row. The aura of celebrity makes some people respond in strange ways.”
When Simpson took the stand in the civil trial, Bruno Magli gained national recognition. Simpson denied wearing a pair of the shoes, but was confronted with dozens of pictures that seemingly contradicted his testimony. The company is now so inextricably connected to the Simpson case that last month, at an international fashion convention in Las Vegas, many who passed the Bruno Magli display referred to its footwear as “O.J. shoes.”
“What all this publicity did was pique the curiosity of the consumer,” Grueterich said. “Maybe before, people wouldn’t have had any interest in Bruno Magli because they’d never heard of us. But after the trial, people had much greater awareness, which has translated into sales increases.”
Sales have risen sharply since the first Simpson trial. In 1996, sales were up 35%, and during the first few months of 1997, sales were up 50%, Grueterich said. The company also has benefited from a new collection and a high-profile publicity campaign, he said. But although the Simpson case has been a key reason for the sales boost, the company has discontinued the Lorenzo model, the shoe Simpson reportedly owned. One reason was an attempt to sever the company’s image from Simpson. Also, many consumers must have agreed with Simpson’s description of the model as “ugly-ass shoes” because only 299 pairs were sold in size 12--Simpson’s size. Still, Grueterich is miffed by the comment.
“That was a bit hypocritical of him to say that,” Grueterich said, with a hint of irritation. “He was seen in photos wearing them so many times, they must have been one of his favorites. In fact, I owned a pair myself. But I have to add,” he says with a chuckle, “they weren’t in size 12.”
After first-degree murder charges were filed against Simpson in June 1994, he and his friend Al Cowlings climbed into a white Ford Bronco and led police on the infamous low-speed chase that was carried on all the major television stations. Almost 100 million viewers tuned in.
A year later, Advertising Age magazine reported: “The publicity results in a spurt in Bronco sales: For the first five months of 1994, sales totaled 13,150, up 12.4% from a year earlier; for the last seven months, a 34.3% uptick is recorded, to 24,217.”
Although the extensive publicity was a boost, a rebate program and other promotional activities also helped sales, said James Bright, a Ford spokesman.
“But there’s no doubt that the Bronco’s name recognition skyrocketed after the chase,” Bright said. “Obviously name recognition is an important component of sales. If people didn’t know about the Bronco before the chase, they certainly did after it.”
It is now impossible to determine the longevity of the sales boost because the company built the final Bronco last year. Ford’s market research indicated that the demand for a full-size two-door utility vehicle was on the decline, Bright said.
The weeks spent at the criminal trial debating the finer points of DNA testing was a stroke of phenomenal luck for Identigene, a DNA testing firm. Identigene launched a series of billboard and television ads during the trial.
Caroline Caskey, president of the Houston-based firm, said the advertising campaign had been planned before the Simpson case and calls the timing “a happy coincidence.” The firm had just developed a simplified DNA test that it was planning to market primarily to individuals who wanted to determine paternity. Caskey, however, was concerned that nobody would know what DNA was. Then the Simpson criminal trial began.
“We got a tremendous response, particularly from our billboard advertising,” Caskey says. “Even though the jury rejected the DNA evidence, the trial served the purpose of educating the public. It had the affect of really helping our business.”
Since the trial, she says, business has quadrupled and continues to grow at a rate of 25% a quarter.
During the criminal trial, television viewers could not miss the word “Sony” in large black letters on the back of the computer monitor on Judge Ito’s desk. A Sony employee had given the monitor a custom paint job to highlight the company’s name. After about a week, however, company executives decided the custom paint job was going a bit too far and replaced the monitor. The Sony logo was still visible, but in a less obtrusive beige.
“Quite a number of judges saw the monitor and expressed an interest in having a similar high-tech installation in their courtrooms,” said Rick Clancy, a Sony spokesman. “During the past few years there’s been an increasing demand for our color computer monitors in the courtroom. I can’t quantify it, but our overall computer product business has been growing at a double-digit clip every year. The trial publicity certainly could have contributed to our sales increase.”
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Aris Isotoner gloves became the focus of intense publicity during the criminal trial, culminating in defense lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran’s line during closing arguments: “If it does not fit, you must acquit.”
When the trial began, Aris was in the process of sampling focus groups to determine the name recognition of the company, said spokeswoman Nancy Young.
“We discovered that as a result of the trial, the name recognition for Aris was much stronger,” she said. “All of a sudden, Aris got extensive attention as a glove manufacturer, even though we manufacture a number of other products. It certainly got our name out there. I imagine there’s been some increase in sales, though exactly how much of this is attributed to the case, I can’t tell you.”
The month before the two killings, Simpson purchased a 15-inch stiletto knife with a stag handle from Ross Cutlery in downtown Los Angeles, a few blocks from where he was filming a movie. Even though the knife--a KC-45S made by the German firm Kissing Crane--never was linked to the murders, it soon became a macabre collector’s item.
“The supplier who imported the knife was deluged with calls,” said Allen Wattenberg, co-owner of Ross Cutlery. “The distributor ended up selling every one he had in stock.”
At Mezzaluna, the restaurant where slaying victim Ronald L. Goldman worked and Nicole Brown Simpson ate her final meal, tourists and gawkers created long waiting lists for tables. But these customers were not the sort of patrons the restaurant wanted to attract, said general manager Jill Jennings.
“It was awful,” she says. “We had a lot of vandalism, a lot of crank phone calls. For a while I was losing about 150 menus a week--at $5 a pop. People were stealing them as souvenirs. Yes it boosted business, but we didn’t want customers who came in for a Coke and a pizza and spent all their time taking pictures and asking crazy questions.”
