Ian Mallon: So near so Spar – when the sponsored star devours the brand
CONTROVERSY: SPAR ambassador and Olympic gold medallist Kellie Harrington. Pic: Naoise Culhane Photography
FOR a sponsorship campaign that was supposed to “drive positive change and impact” SPAR’s ‘60th Anniversary Community Fund’ certainly achieved maximum attention.
Everyone is now aware that SPAR has been giving generously to good causes for 60 years, and we very definitely know that Kellie Harrington is the face of it all.
The only problem is that SPAR has inadvertently got itself into one of the great sponsorship calamities, and all because of an athlete the firm believed to be the most wholesome brand ambassador of them all.
Before this week, Kellie was the commercial gift that marketing managers dream of – inextricably linked to one brand – a company which beat off all others to land the most sellable of sporting assets.
A superstar next door, who when not winning Olympic Gold medals is working with the sick in hospital, and being a genuinely good egg.
Except that image is now scrambled after a week which will last in the memory, not just for Kellie’s controversial views on immigration, but on the gestation a crisis which has hatched into a fully formed gremlin.
A number of sources involved in and around the SPAR campaign have told that they are still trying to figure out how Harrington’s fear of immigrants had been missed, and some are still plotting a way out of the mess.
On the record SPAR said it is happy that Kellie Harrington has ‘clarified her position’ - on what she tweeted, deleted and subsequently didn’t say about immigration – and the matter is now over, with the two sides set to continue together along the commercial journey to Paris 2024.
“We welcome Kellie’s recent statement in which she clarified her position in relation to this important matter,” said a SPAR spokesman.
But there lies the problem. Kellie hasn’t clarified her position on immigrants and the dangers she was so vocal about as to call on political leaders to pay attention.
Indeed neither she nor SPAR once mentioned the ‘I’ word in any of their subsequent statements.
It would have been good for Kellie - in the same way Justin Thomas did two years ago after using a homophobic slur on mic at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii – to come out and make a sincere statement on camera.
Instead, Kellie issued a form of words which didn’t address the matter only to now say she didn’t really understand the issues that she had tweeted about in October, and that she was all about diversity and inclusivity, but not enough to put the issue to bed.
Instead, SPAR will continue in bunker mode until such a time the matter is cleared up, otherwise the next occasion she’s wheeled her out for a campaign those questions will return.
A soft landing on Friday night’s Late Late Show would have been ideal – but that isn’t going to happen either, understands – so where this one finally ends is uncertain.
Controversy and uncertainty are the two things which makes big brands buckle.
Kellie’s views to one side, the issue for this forum is how a such a key sports sponsor allowed for such a disaster to evolve, through a stagger-pattern of missteps and stumbles.
The campaign appears from here, albeit very easy to critique after the stable door has been smashed open, to have been so badly prepared, inefficiently managed and poorly repaired.
At its most basic SPAR failed in the very first rule of communications when putting a personality forward for ‘live’ interview – ‘Prepare for the absolute worst, all of the time.’ Given its campaign was to be a catch-all for SPAR’s Commercial, Sponsorship, Communications and Public Relations pillars, it clearly hadn’t locked Kellie in a room for a day and thrown all types of dirt and scenarios at her – particularly ‘That Tweet’.
In case you weren’t one of the almost 2m people who have now viewed the clip, complete with Kellie in corporate branding, interviewer Shane Hannon asked the then darling of Irish sponsorship about her position as a role model within the SPAR campaign.
The brand must have known that Hannon would ask about reports about her comments on social media about immigration, when sharing a clip by right wing commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek - who blamed immigrants for the murders of children in France.
Eva regularly turns up on pro-Putin evangelist Tucker Carlson’s show on s and on the UK’s ‘Fox Lite’ thrash-fest,
When asked, Kellie became hostile, sarcastic and resistant, and as if that wasn’t bad enough SPAR waded into the row with a number of audible interjections from a panicking press advisor, who twice told Hannon to “move on”.
Harrington also appeared to suggest that she didn’t agree with Hannon’s pro-immigration views and then resorted to sarcasm at one point telling the interrogator to stop, using a reference from the Disney movie, : “Be like Elsa, let it go.”
Interviews go badly all of the time, athletes and indeed boxers, can have particularly quirky moral positions – but what is unacceptable is the attempted suppression of a valid interrogation about such controversial views, by a press officer.
The SPAR comms operative should of course have said nothing – the situation was already lost, Harrington had no interest in achieving some recovery for the brand and the campaign is a dead duck, achieving little traction for the company outside of the storm.
But then the statement issued by the BWG Group this week - the owners of SPAR Ireland - only added to the confusion by saying the matter had now been cleared up.
In fairness to the firm it is now in damage limitation mode, as a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week news cycles take hold. And that’s before the weekend newspapers and radio shows get their go.
Should SPAR sack Kellie for her views? Not unless they are deeply entrenched, hostile opinions of immigrants, which are contrary to SPAR’s own stance – we just don’t know.
As much as Kellie might like us all to be more like Elsa, there will be some who simply cannot ‘Let It Go’.
IT WAS nice while it lasted, but football supporters are no longer allowed to bring their drinks to their seats at the Aviva Stadium.
A pilot scheme issued by the FAI last year for two Nations League games at the stadium, where fans could carry their beer inside the bowl and watch football while supping on their favourite tipple has ended.
has learned that the ban is back after too many punters were rushing out to the bars during play, causing major disruption to fans seated, who just wanted to watch the games.
The Aviva Booze debate is one that has dominated rugby fan experience discussions for some time, where the IRFU even issued a survey on its findings earlier this year which showed that the majority (68 per cent) of fans were against such restrictions.
However, one in four questioned for the ‘IRFU Review of Alcohol Consumption in the Seating Area of the Aviva Stadium’ said fans “getting up and coming back with drinks during games greatly diminishes their matchday experience”.
In the words of one steward on Premium level of the Aviva Stadium on Monday night, when asked about the policy of banning drink for soccer but not rugby, helpfully pointed out: “Football fans aren’t rugby supporters, right.” Ouch.
An FAI spokesman was more eloquent: "No alcohol is permitted inside the bowl at the Aviva Stadium during FAI matches."
ROISIN O’SHEA has been appointed Chief Operating Officer at Cage Warriors – Europe’s leading MMA organisation.
The former Twitter sports partnership lead and StubHub executive has also worked with the UFC.
Speaking about her new role O’Shea said: “I’ve only ever worked in jobs I absolutely love and it’s because I am passionate about the work I do.
“I truly believe our best work is done when we love what we do, and I’m looking forward to working with the team that delivers such incredible work at Cage Warriors week in, week out.”
Cage Warrior President Graham Boylan said O’Shea has “an outstanding track record in the sports and entertainment industries, and I’m confident she’ll make a huge impact on the stellar work we do”.
