Stopping in Montana recently to tout his Social Security reform proposal, President Bush opened the floor to questions. One question: “What kind of mountain bike do you ride?”
Bush hesitated. “I’m not supposed to endorse products, but it’s called a Trek,” he said, launching into a mini-lecture on the value of regular exercise. With those words, Trek Bicycle Corp., a closely held company based in Waterloo, Wis., received one of the luckiest breaks in the marketing business: a presidential product mention in a favorable context.
Trek joins a select group of companies that have had the good fortune to be favored by an American president and his family. Ryan Atkinson, a Trek spokesman, says the company is “psyched” about the association but notes it would be “bad form” to directly tout its Bush connection. Instead, he says, in its factory tours, Trek makes an indirect reference to its favorable standing in the White House by emphasizing that Secret Service agents routinely use Trek products while shadowing Bush. (Though it was the first time Bush has publicly mentioned the product, he has been photographed on a Trek bike before.) There’s no law in the U.S. against presidential endorsements, but tradition and taste dictate that the president refrain from product plugs. “A paid endorsement is not something he’d ever do,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino says of President Bush.
For a marketer, getting a presidential mention–or, better yet, having the president photographed using your product–is mostly a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
Not that marketers can’t try to get a foot in the first family’s door. The White House says the president and first lady receive about 1,000 gifts a month. Some are from world leaders, others from well-wishers–and many from vendors. They are sorted by the White House gift office, which has a five-person staff; Bush receives a routine report of the gifts he has received and sometimes visits the rooms where they are stored.
One gift was the Watash Executive Limited Crystal Putter, presented to Bush by its inventor during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Aides say Bush favors a putter produced by Callaway Golf Co., of Carlsbad, Calif., a company also patronized by his father and by former President Bill Clinton. Paul Mullins, owner of Watash Crystal Inc., of Ogden, Utah, is undaunted; his Web site brags that both Bush and Clinton own the putters. “I have a thank-you letter from President Bush–it’s signed by him,” Mullins says. “I haven’t heard yet from Mr. Clinton.”
In accordance with federal ethics rules, Bush makes an annual declaration of gifts he has chosen to keep that are valued at more than $260. On his 2004 declaration, Bush declared 16 gifts valued at a collective $22,355. Companies can only hope that he might choose one of theirs and be seen using it. Last year’s declaration included a $630 Thomas & Thomas fly rod and three pairs of Mizuno USA Inc. running shoes, valued at $360.
In the current charged political atmosphere, a presidential endorsement may not always be a godsend. When Bush was photographed recently using Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod music player, the Web site Macdailynews abandoned its relatively genteel discussions of electronic gadgets and turned darkly partisan. “That does it, I’m tossing my iPod in the Potomac,” one poster said.
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Edited by Lara Weber (lweber@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
