Kamila Valieva’s social networks have recently turned into a parade advertising posts. One could be happy about the figure skater’s financial success if there was more common sense in her commercial implementation. Sports is looking into how Valieva's PR team makes one mistake after another in their desire to earn all the money in the world.
The crooked seams catch the eye. Kamila Valieva initially created the image of a girl genius, and it was an absolutely organic wrapper for her. A gifted child with his own artistic vision. Unearthly subtlety, talent and grace, which only one person in a million has. She is Saint-Saëns's dying swan at nine, a Picasso painting come to life at 12, and at 15 she is already allowed to skate Ravel's Bolero. No one could compare with Valieva in her role.
But during the time that Camila was excommunicated from competitions due to a doping scandal, the agents lost this feature. They put her on a par with unremarkable bloggers of one day. Everyone needs money, this is understandable, but there is still a feeling that it could be earned more gracefully. The last relatively large decent brand that collaborated with Camila was Russian youth clothing. She even came to the Russian Championship draw ceremony in December 2023 in their dress.
In the last six months alone, Valieva has advertised turkey meat, a computer game, a bank, budget cosmetics, a chatbot, an online cinema, a youth forum, social and political events, and barbecue. The experiment with the latter is a major embarrassment, no matter how you look at it. It was tastelessly conceived, filmed and, most importantly, in no way correlated with Camila’s persona. Such advertising omnivorousness definitely harms its image.
Inconsistencies in media strategy, like crooked seams on a dress, are very noticeable. For public appearances, Valieva is dressed in trouser suits a la a financial director, making her look visually older than her years. Apparently, “older” in the eyes of her agents = more respectable. More respectable means more expensive. But then she is handed a barbecue and catalog cosmetics. They throw it away from socio-political topics to dubiously entertaining ones. All this reduces the interest of really big brands – automakers, financial institutions, large marketplaces. Yes, even some network of gas stations! In the end, Valieva comes from an oil-bearing region – it is unlikely that any of the local giants of Tatarstan would be interested in her face if the issue was properly studied. But which of the market whales would want to stand on a par with the small fish.
Condoms? Alcohol? Agent Levan Matua, who managed to effectively organize the post-sports life of two-time world champion Evgenia Medvedeva, in an interview with Business Online, formulated the criteria for a good advertising offer. Firstly, a world star cannot work for a low price tag. Secondly, reputation matters, and she will not allow Zhenya to become the face of condoms and alcohol, no matter how much money they offer. It’s also important to weed out outright nonsense. Like a cream for calluses with a fee of 500 rubles – seriously, Medvedeva once received such an offer in the mail.
It feels like almost everything that Valieva is now advertising is the same cream for calluses for 500 rubles. Even if he gives not 500 rubles, but 50 thousand rubles. It’s as if its agents aren’t trying at all to create an attractive picture for advertisers and the media, aren’t coming up with original concepts, and are indiscriminately accepting one direct message request after another.
Faceless posts written by an unknown smm-man with mentions of brands completely blur Kamila Valieva as a public face. Who is she? What are you interested in and value? What will millions want to repeat after her? It is simply impossible to answer all these questions clearly now. And this is a failure, given the initial data – Camila’s beautiful appearance, her ability to speak, as well as her gigantic loyal fan base.
The main thing is that there are no complaints about Camila herself. She graduates from school this year and is only 18 years old. At this age, how can one know exactly what is good and what is bad according to the laws of marketing? Where does the feeling of being a whole person come from and the ability to resist what causes internal rejection. In this whole story with advertising illegibility, Valieva, in fact, only plays the usual role of a performer. I just wish it were not run by amateurs.
The author’s opinion may not coincide with the position of the editors
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