Response to Peter's Blog Post

Peter "Gurn" Gernetzke recently posted a blog, Celebrity Endorsement. In this blog post, he analyzed the effectiveness and validity of the endorsement of Geico by Little Richard, the singer. In the commercial, Little Richard is paired with a pastor to talk about the coverage given to his church. After the pastor says a phrase, Little Richard would respond with excitement and shout a phrase, but his phrase didn't quite seem to match up with what the pastor was saying. I did a little bit of research and found that the video that Peter had linked to his blog post was not a real commercial for Geico. Instead it was a "green screened" advertisement, the church had made to promote their moving. That the church picked little richard surprised me, but I found out he does have a very active faith, being a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. However, when Little Richard released his first big hit "Tutti Frutti," many pastors condemned the origin version of the song due to it's vulgar language. I did think the church made a fairly funny video, using the Geico commercial format.
In the actual commercial with Little Richard working for Geico, he is seen with a women, who is describing her thanksgiving accident. She had hit a deer and talked about the service on Thanksgiving she got from Geico. Little Richard did a great job of "jazzing" up the commercial and giving it some energy. I doubt Little Richard, even uses Geico, but he improved the commercial tremendously.
Peter in his blog did bring up a good point about the risk of using celebrity endorsements. Companies must watch to make sure their celebrity is setting a good example in their life. Negative decisions made by the celebrity, if exposed by the media, could have negative consequences for the company.