The Kate Moss Episode Has Taught Advertisers That Just Because They Might Forgive A Celebrity’s Folly, the Public May Not, and the Public Wins. There May Be Something to the Morals Clause After All.

Philip M. Stone September 22, 2005

The amazing point about Kate Moss’ cocaine snort is that she apologized, her future employer accepted the apology, and everyone thought the issue closed. But no one had counted on the extreme negative public reaction to a super model role model breaking a hard narcotics taboo, yet alone how the UK tabloids would rip her apart.Go To Follow Up & Comments

Moss’s media people were savvy enough to get her to apologize very quickly to her future employer, Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Europe’s largest clothing chain with headquarters in Sweden, once the Daily Mirror had splashed the story across its front page that she snorted cocaine. And the company publicly announced that it accepted her apology and everyone then thought it was full speed ahead for her to model a special line of Stella McCartney clothes on a contract said to be worth around £4 million annually.

And then the weekend came and the public via the Internet and contacts at H&M stores made it clear they did not expect a clothes company that catered to young adults and teenagers to have their wares touted by a cocaine-snorting model. It just didn’t fit the marketing image that H&M has built up over the years. And the stories in the UK Sunday tabloids about “Cocaine Kate” just made a very bad situation that much worse.

For H&M, which for years has contributed to anti-drug campaigns, it was just too much. By Tuesday their original decision was reversed and Ms. Moss was out.

But her problems seem only now to be beginning. Burberry had planned a major promotion with Moss as its star, -- she has been in five of Burberry’s last six campaigns -- but that now has been put on ice. Chanel, for whom Ms. Moss is the face of Coco Mademoiselle fragrance, says her contract that expires in October will not be renewed although it claimed that decision had nothing to do with the cocaine incident. Ms. Moss was said to earn some £750,000 annually from the Chanel contract.

If that wasn’t bad enough the commissioner of police weighed in and said Scotland Yard would be taking a look. Usually it goes after dealers not users, but exceptions can be made. “If we have an allegation about a person who is so much in the public eye and a role model it seems to me important that we investigate,” the police commissioner told the BBC.

Moss’ problems began in a Daily Mirror  splash Sept. 15 with pictures of her apparently snorting large amounts of cocaine and undercover reporters recorded her talking openly about using cocaine and other narcotics.  Just two months earlier she had won a libel judgment and “substantial damages” against the Mirror’s sister Sunday Mirror newspaper that alleged Moss had collapsed into a cocaine-induced coma in Barcelona in 2001.

The British tabloids have had a field day since the Mirror’s exclusive and the Sunday tabloids basically ripped her to pieces, from explaining how expert she allegedly was in forming lines of cocaine and then snorting it to digging out an alleged friend who claimed she had partied some 60 times with Moss around the world in the past seven years “and not once have I seen her when she wasn’t doing drugs or booze”. And we won’t even get into the three-in-a-bed stories!

Not exactly the “healthy, wholesome and sound” image that the 31-year-old model had agreed in her contract with H&M. Given the public furor, the Swedes really had little choice but to back out.

Moss, who is English, is probably best known for her Calvin Klein work. A modeling company discovered her at the age of 14 as she was walking through New York’s JFK Airport. She represents several other fashion icons including Dior and Rimmel, a make-up brand targeted at teenage girls,

She is said to earn around £4 million a year through various commercial contracts and to be worth around  £30 million.

One thing for certain, as Janet Jackson learned with her wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl Game, Russell Crowe learned from his telephone throwing incident in New York earlier this year, and now Kate Moss with snorting cocaine, celebrities can get their professional lives into serious trouble when they cross that line separating acceptable behavior from the unacceptable. And as all three have discovered, a simple apology doesn’t do it. 

One report says that Ms. Moss has promised her family she will go through rehab. It may well take at least that before she becomes commercially viable again.

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You Just Can’t Keep A Good Model Down; Kate Moss Arises – December 9, 2005

French Vogue hit the stands last week with its cover – indeed the whole edition – devoted to Kate Moss -- the “Scandalous Beauty”.

Ands she has the backing of Francois-Henri Pinault, one of France’s premiere businessmen who runs a fashion empire ranging from Gucci to Yves Saint Laurent.

“If you use Kate Moss as a symbol of freedom, of transgression, you have to be honest. You can’t use her image to convey those kinds of messages and then be surprised that she breaks the rules in her private life,” he told Vogue.

It’s a perfect example of how a career can be salvaged from scandal and hypocrisy by the right PR. Moss had apologized for her cocaine use and had gone through a rehab program.

In fact, perhaps the “bad-girl” image may have revived a career that might have been coming to its natural end, anyway. She has recently appeared on the cover of W and Vanity Fair in the US.