Poor Ronaldo. It seems his image in China has been stained by our local Golden Throat throat lozenge company in their television advertising using his smiling face. I am no lawyer, but putting aside my instinctive distrust of Chinese business practice, I still see a few things in this evolving story that nobody seems to have mentioned.
Ronaldo might never have known the better had it not been for another Chinese company approaching him and asking for an advertising contract, on the condition that he first cease his contract with the Golden Throat company of (our fair city) Liuzhou, China. In my mind, though, it is not as simple as that.
I do not go for the Guardian Unlimited's comment that Ronaldo "innocently posed holding a packet of Golden Throat Lozenges." What? Ronaldo is not stupid; surely he knows the publicity game. Somehow I find it at least somewhat hard to believe that he would hold up a some product and smile for the camera an not expect it to show up again somewhere.
This has to do with much more than one picture. The initial problem, if you remember is a TV spot. This is video we are talking about. Though not a long video, all of China has seen Ronaldo grinning with his Golden Throats lozenges. As the sign says (translated from Chinese), "To protect my throat, I use Golden Throats". Sure he does.
The Danwei site has some interesting information about the Ronaldo-Golden Throat issue:
This campaign, which includes print and TV ads, was probably conceived and shot in about 5 minutes during Real Madrid's money harvesting publicity tour of the PRC last August. Nobody knows how much money Golden Throat had to pay the Brazilian Golden Boy for his endorsment. But it can't have been less than the hundred thousand US dollars allegedly paid to Ronaldo just to sit down at a gala dinner when he was in Beijing.
Now, I am basing my information on that comment, but if Golden Throat paid $100,000 for this big dinner with Real Madrid, well, they did pay something for his presence. And no, I do not know Chinese law, but it would seem that makes things a little more complex.
I remember my first thoughts on the legitimacy of Golden Throat's ads using our friend, Ronaldo Liuz Nazário de Lima. Evidently, it was months before Ronaldo himself knew of the problem, but back then (not being a big TV watcher), I figured it was limited to print/billboard adverts. In downtown Liuzhou, I saw the ads of Ronaldo in a Golden Throat jersey in at least five different poses (I have not taken the time to count them all).
Being a photographer and having played with some more difficult photo editing, I looked at these advertisements with a critical eye. I asked myself how hard it would be to take everything from standing shots to flying kick photos and put a Golden Throat jersey on Ronaldo. Not too hard, but with Ronaldo's "official sponsor" signature, all the different photos, and the photographic similarity between them, I figured it was legit. I especially like the new Golden Throat calendars with Ronaldo and Golden Throat's president together!
However, CRI reports straight from the mouth of Ronaldo's representative to state the four proofs that Golden Throat is in breach of the law. I guess it does not get much more clear. I still want to know about the $100,000!
And, what only one site has mentioned on this whole matter, another Luizhou-based site I might add, is the real wrench in Ronaldo's works to sue Golden Throat: "Ms. Jiang Peizhen (the president of Golden Throat) is a member of the Political Consultative Conference of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, theoretically the region's highest political body, and also a delegate of the Conference of Representatives of Chinese Communists in Liuzhou City. She has won numerous awards and is seen as a symbol of how the ever-loving Party treats women equally."
That makes things, let's say, difficult for poor Mr. de Lima. Just check out the Golden Throat website, and you will see on whom the true emphasis lies! If she has a bigger photo there, why not just use her as the spokesman...lady!
Though it seems Ronaldo has been abused in this case, with all the facts at hand, what are the chances of a successful international dispute? He is taking on a big dog on her home turf! That is easy for me to say, I guess. This is no easy decision for Ronaldo, but I would seriously think twice about "alternative measures" outside of the court system.
