Sao Paulo: Neymar’s decision to use a sponsored advertisement to admit that he sometimes over-reacted to fouls at the recently concluded World Cup in Russia has backfired, according to the Brazilian marketing experts who stated that it had made the Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) striker’s image even worse.
Under the title ‘A New Man Every Day’, Sunday’s video was backed by personal care products maker Gillette and were broadcast on several Brazilian TV networks.
“You may think I exaggerate. And sometimes I do exaggerate. But the truth is I suffer on the pitch,” Neymar said in the video, referring to the constant fouls he received in the tournament. “I took long to accept your criticism. I took long to look at myself in the mirror and become a new man.”
However, the marketing specialists think that the advertisement damaged the 26-year-old player’s brand as much as his histrionics did in Russia.
“The whole market waited 15 days since the end of the World Cup to hear from him,” Amir Somoggi, a partner at marketing company Sports Value, told this agency. “No doubt it’s (the advertisement) great for the sponsor, after all we are talking about the brand. But it was not good for Neymar, who now has an even bigger image crisis to handle.”
However, this is not the first time Neymar has used such sponsored advertisements to handle image crisis. In 2011, he was criticised for constant misbehavior and he used an advertisement sponsored by phone carrier Nextel to address his fans.