Aaron Rodgers apologized for misleading the public about immunization. Will his sponsors care?
Where is the line between intentionally misleading and lying? As Aaron Rodgers explores that area, questions arise about his value as product pitch-man.
- Aaron Rodgers first course of action could have been to admit his mistake, experts say.
- Instead, the Packers QB blamed 'woke culture' for his decision to mislead the pubic.
- What impact will that have on Rodgers' endorsements? Depends what he does next.
For Aaron Rodgers, it would have been as easy as following the ABCs of public relations after the revelation that Rodgers was unvaccinated from COVID-19 and hadn’t been following NFL protocols this season.
“It’s a very simple formula,” said Daniel Korschun, a professor of marketing at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. “A, you admit your mistake. B, you apologize. And three, you set a course of action to rectify the situation.”
Instead, Korschun said, what the Green Bay Packers quarterback did was misrepresented his vaccination status. Earlier this year, Rodgers told reporters he was "immunized." His vaccination status became wider known last week when he tested positive for COVID-19.
Rodgers then, in a controversial appearance on The Pat McAfee Show last Friday, blamed the outrage that followed surrounding his vaccination status on 'woke culture', invoked the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., said he was taking the drug ivermectin despite medical experts' advice against it and pointed to the controversial podcaster Joe Rogan as someone he was taking advice from.
Rodgers also said he was allergic to ingredients in COVID-19 vaccines.
“He tried to shift the blame on what he called the woke culture and others but also bring it into the political realm,” Korschun said. “And so he brought politics in when he really should have just been focusing on apologizing for his misstatements and trying to rectify the situation with some specific concrete steps.”
Erik Bernstein, a crisis management expert at Bernstein Crisis Management, said it was important to note that this was a completely preventable crisis.
"Doing the radio interview after he was caught and using the word 'woke culture' probably got him a lot more negative headlines than he needed," he said. "He stepped in it and he kept on poking that hornet's nest."
Rodgers lost an endorsement deal with Prevea Health after the news broke.
State Farm, his most prominent partner, told Paste BN’s Christine Brennan that they were standing by their QB – though his appearance in State Farm commercials on Sunday decreased from 25% to 1.5% according to the Apex Marketing Group.
While the vaccine controversy will likely only affect a small portion of his NFL season, both experts said it could have a greater impact on his ability to get endorsements off of the field.
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“Most marketers would consider Aaron Rodgers to be a brand in himself and people look for brands that they trust and they feel comfortable forming relationships with,” Korschun said. “So when people look for brands they trust and they feel comfortable forming relationships with. When things like this come up, they’re not looking at the vaccination status itself. They’re looking at what makes the particular brand - in this case Aaron Rodgers - tick.”
In a second appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, Rodgers apologized “to anybody who felt misled” by earlier comments he made.
“I shared an opinion that is polarizing," Rodgers said Tuesday. "I get it. And I misled some people about my status, which I take full responsibility for, those comments, but at the end I have to stay true to who I am and what I’m about.”
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But that apology may not be enough to bring Rodgers back to a sought-after spokesman for some of the mainstream brands - and even Jeopardy hosting gigs - that he had lined up before. The good news for Rodgers: Korschun said it’s never too late to follow those ABCs of public relations.
“It’s a combination of taking responsibility and setting some concrete steps to make that statement right,” he said. “I would say, if I were advising him, it would be to focus less on the vaccine status - which is not really why people are upset - and I’d advise him to focus more on this breach of trust he created by misrepresenting his status.”
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To improve his chances for endorsements in the future, Bernstein said the number one thing he could do was "shut up and keep his head down."
He thinks Rodgers' potential for future endorsements in years to come has a lot to do with his on-the-field performance.
"If he goes out there and he can go out as a legend then people will not care about this," Bernstein said. "If he goes out there and flops that's going to be a tough last headline for him."