Police Release Photos of ShamWow Pitchman's Blood-Spattered, Condom-Filled Hotel Room
It’s old news that ShamWow and SlapChop pitchman Vince Shlomi was arrested after he had a fight with a hooker in a Miami hotel. (And that, the same week, it was revealed that he had filed a weird lawsuit against some Scientologists whom he claims ripped off his SlapChop device.)
But police released to The Smoking Gun this week pictures they took at the crime scene (Shlomi’s hotel room) and the hospital. And they are grim. Blood-spattered walls and sheets. Condoms all over the bed. A 
cell phone covered in gore. (Click to enlarge.)
Most celebrity endorsers would have had their ads pulled long ago for bringing this level of embarrasment to their brands — but not Vince! Over on ShamWow.com, Shlomi is still pitching as if nothing has happened. It’s the same on SlapChop.com.
This is the difference between direct response marketing and regular brand advertising. In direct response, the rules are strict — as long as sales are being made, the ads continue to run. In brand advertising, you don’t care about sales because it’s all about polishing the image.
In recessions, even brand managers get more concerned about making sales, so this incident — potentially — contains the lesson that for some products even the worst possible news does not, in fact, damage sales.
Makes you wonder whether Kellogg did the right thing after dropping swimmer Michael Phelps when he was snapped sucking on that bong. Or perhaps not.
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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