Nike Has Michael Jordan, the Pope Has the Frito Bandito

NIKE IS THE archetype of the fin-de-sihcle marketer: Big, gutsy, proud, fearless and moderately unscrupulous.

Some degree of mourning has to drop Nike’s flag to half-mast these days, because Michael Jordan no longer hangs from the hoop. To hundreds of thousands-make that millions-of underprivileged kids, Michael Jordan was Nike. That made him into a greater-than-life icon, the being they could be. So, if they could, they bought Nikes.

I’m in partial mourning, too, because Michael Jordan exemplified class, and we don’t have that in sports these days. The class acts-Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Don Budge, Sid Luckman, Bobby Hull-they’re all either playing golf or gone to that great playground in the sky. They’ve been replaced by “Look at me!” poseurs such as Dennis Rodman and the nasty disciples of John McEnroe. We see lots of gold chains and hear egomaniacal ravings of pure brass.

Then we have a phenomenon that, damn it, no longer seems to be a phenomenon: Northwest Airlines. No, Northwest staff members don’t wear Nikes; they don’t want to move fast and destroy their reputation.

But the two organizations have this in common: Nike is a purely commercial enterprise. So is Northwest Airlines, which has to hold the world’s record for slowness in check-ins, slowness in bag retrieval, and certainly slowness in attention to passenger comfort. So OK, if Nike wants to charge a couple of hundred bucks for a pair of basketball shoes, it’s their option. We can always say no. (Hah! Try saying no to a slathering kid whom Nike has convinced that a pair of shoes is the key to the kingdom of heaven.) If Northwest Airlines drops MCI and grabs Sprint, offering 16,500 mile-points if you take on a complete folio of communications services, why, OK. Anybody who wants another 16,500 mile-points on Northwest is too much a masochist to be upset by the prospect of a trip on a troop carrier.

OK, so that covers Nike and Northwest. The parallel between those commercial enterprises and supposedly non-commercial enterprises is a lot more obvious than it was even a couple of years ago.

Living in South Florida, where we have Pro Player Stadium and a hockey arena mysteriously named The National Car Rental Center, I shouldn’t be surprised by the peculiar and sometimes bizarre commercial sponsorships of what’s supposed to be public domain. So why does it bother me that the Children’s Museum of Manhattan has Merck Pharmaceuticals sponsoring its “Body Odyssey”? I can see future exhibits: parts of the body labeled with prescriptions. Why not be logical and have Lever 2000 soap as sponsor of “Body Odyssey”?

But stranger yet was the visit in late January of the pope to Mexico City and St. Louis (a peculiar combination of venues, don’t you think?). The papal tour was sponsored by Frito-Lay, Hewlett-Packard, Mercedes-Benz, Pepsi and I don’t know who else. I had always regarded the Frito Bandito as the Antichrist, but obviously an epiphanous conversion has occurred.

(Papal Nuncio Justo Mullor told the Mexico City newspaper Reforma: “We live in an era of advertising and we are men of this era.”)

Product placement takes a quantum leap forward! The pope can’t wear a Brioni suit, as Pierce Brosnan does in his James Bond appearances, and I assume he doesn’t carry a Glock; but his product placement parallels James Bond-Mercedes-Benz instead of BMW. “The name is Paul. John Paul.”

We’re early in the game, so the pope didn’t show up with emblems plastered all over his robes like a race car driver. But the trend is clear: Commercial sponsorships now extend their tentacles to every target that can bear an image.

So a generation from now we can look forward to sponsorships bringing religion into full focus…as in TV-camera focus. The Shoes of the Fisherman will be Nikes, of course. The Lord’s Prayer will be, “Give us each day our Rosen’s Rye.” The imperative will be, “Cast your Wonder Bread upon the waters and your Rexall vitamins will be returned a thousandfold.” And Northwest can advertise “Whither thou goest I shall go, although your luggage goeth elsewhere.”

We’ve opened a huge Pandora’s Box of opportunities. Remember the ancient “Suzy Chapstick” commercials? Well, in the words of Al Jolson, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

The last syllable of the Palestinian leader’s name lends itself to a memorable endorsement for Procter & Gamble: “My name used to be Ara-fat. Now it’s Ara-Olean.” Senate majority leader Trent Lott can make his spouse available to Morton’s Salt, “the choice of Lott’s wife.” And William Shatner can have his pick of any number of sanitary supplies.

The biggest benefit will be to those who have trouble singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” We’ll bring those lyrics down to earth. “The rocket’s red glare” certainly makes less sense than its successor, “The Alero’s crimson exhaust.”

The way to blend these cultures so the contagious cynicism behind them is less obvious is through a simple device: a pair of parentheses. Among those who prefer communication over pomposity and obfuscation, parentheses already are replacing asterisks.

We can save Social Security and start whittling away at the national debt by offering sponsorships, camouflaged inside parentheses:

“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner (Amazon.com) yet wave (L’Oreal), o’er the land (quarter-acre lots, $495) of the free (except for shipping, handling, insurance and markup) and the home (in this desirable subdivision with a view of running water) of the (Atlanta) brave(s)?”

You can see the happy future: We’re architects (courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation) of destiny, leaving our footprints (Dr. Scholl’s) on the sands of Time (professional rate $39.97, you save 74% off the cover price…and, oh, Waterhouse).