Why is Shaquille O'Neal Selling Me Printer Ink?
What does denouncing celebrity mean for a man who manages to be almost everywhere?
Over the last few months, I’ve considered buying a new printer. I used to love making zines in my early 20’s, but my hand-me-down inkjet printer rescued from a trash heap at an old unpaid internship isn’t the most efficient tool for that job. While the image quality is up to snuff, replacing the ink cartridges easily costs over $100.
Having learned the hard way that much of a printer’s expense lies not in the initial investment but in the cost of ink, getting a new printer is not a task I’m willing to entrust to Amazon’s first suggestion. Instead, I’ve taken up the painstaking task of taking notes on the pros and cons of various models.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) the first printer recommendations I came across while searching were from none other than basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal.
After a little digging, I discovered that the Japanese electronics company Epson has employed the NBA Hall of Famer as a brand ambassador for the past several years. In particular, he’s often featured in promotional material for Epson’s EcoTank line of printers. “Between my family and work, life keeps me pretty busy,” explains Shaq in a July 2019 press release. “I’m always on the lookout for products that make everyday tasks quick and easy, so I can focus on the things that matter most. Epson simply offers the best printing and home technology out there”.
Epson takes full advantage of the celebrity endorsement, finding a way for the 7’1” behemoth of a man to interact with just about every product in their line of home office supplies. ‘Think you have receipts laying around? Try walking in Shaq’s shoes,’ one blurb on the website reads. ‘Epson’s RapidReceipt scanner and included software lets him make quick work of turning his financial paperwork and receipt collection into digital information.’ Shaq’s mother, Lucille O’Neal, even makes a cameo appearance to help restore “boxes of precious memories, fading to oblivion” with the Epson FastFoto scanner.
Of course, the thought of Shaq himself dealing with any of the mundane tasks that involve fussing around with a printer is absurd. Why would he, when he likely has a fleet of personal assistants at the ready to take care of any printing need he could possibly dream of? Why is Shaq, of all the people on the planet that might know something about the ins and outs of printing technology, the person Epson deemed most qualified to sell me on a machine?
Unfortunately, trying to find answers has only led to more questions.
Anyone familiar with the famous athlete is probably aware that Epson is far from O’Neal’s only business endeavor. Even so, it’s hard to overstate just how much Shaquille shows up in absurd advertisements.
A lot of the products Shaq associates with make sense. Recruiting a world-renowned athlete to promote Gold Bond Foot Powder or Icy Hot Extra Strength Pain Relief isn’t a stretch. Alkaline88, ionized water enhanced with Himalayan minerals and marketed as “deliciously smooth” sounds stupid conceptually, but Shaq must know a thing or two more than the rest of us about how to maintain a healthy body. Right? While you’re at it, through Novex Biotech, you can buy the “Shaq Pack” of testosterone boosters and human growth hormones.
But banking on his past life as an athlete doesn’t begin to cover the tip of the endorsement iceberg.
Back in the 1980s, still just a humble undergrad student at LSU, Shaquille started researching why certain television ads worked after failing a marketing assignment.
“I’m just sitting there watching all these commercials, trying to figure it out. And I see this dumb dog,” O’Neal recounts in a 2018 interview with Brian Gumbel. “I’m like, ‘Damn. This is a dog. Yeah, Spuds McKenzie, he don’t even talk.’”
Vexed by the bull terrier selling Bud Light, Shaq ruminated on Spuds for quite a while before finally putting the pieces together. As he phrases it, “Everything [Spuds] does is funny. I’m funny.”
Just like that, the concept of Shaq’s brand was conceived. Knowing that Shaq aims to be “fun” further explains some of the goods and services he backs. It’s the reason he’s willing to don a captain’s hat and champion Carnival cruises, despite COVID outbreaks and the fact that he’d never be able to board a Carnival cruise without drowning in fan adoration. It’s the reason Shaq teamed up with Tony the Tiger to add cinnamon basketballs to Frosted Flakes. It’s also the reason he’s recruited for advertisements featuring the Buick LaCrosse and Double-Stuffed Oreos alike.
It’s simple enough to understand. Everyone wants to smile more, to feel more pleasure in their mundane lives. Shaq’s presence both delivers that temporary endorphin rush and promises that, if you buy what he’s selling, some of that infectious positivity might rub off on you. The humor he injects into his endeavors even helps to solve the age-old issue of a celebrity spreading their endorsements across so many products that the endorsement loses all meaning. It’s a meta-joke that Shaq endorses everything, and when we see that big happy face peddling something new, it’s tempting to laugh rather than think cynically.
“I came from nothing,” Shaq once explained in an interview with the New York Post. “But, just because I made it doesn’t mean I’m bigger than you, smarter than you — just because I have more money doesn’t mean I’m better than you.”
There’s some truth in this statement. Shaq grew up in Newark, NJ at the peak of the city’s economic decline. His wealth certainly wasn’t handed to him, and a big factor in his professional success reportedly stemmed from incessant lectures on fiscal responsibility from his father.
Of course, Shaq’s statement isn’t entirely truthful. As much as he might invite me to reach out and send a text message on his social media platforms, I know in my heart not to expect a response from the multi-millionaire icon.
The attempt at crafting an automated message that seems like it could be a sincere response reveals another layer to the multi-faceted brand Shaq’s embraced. Despite being larger than life, part of his image relies on being relatable. In fact, he tried to denounce his own celebrity status in September1. He once was a “regular” person, so you’re supposed to be able to trust him to know what works for other “regular” people.
This is probably why, in 2019, Papa John’s Pizza brought Shaq in to save the brand shortly after founder and board member John Schnatter was caught on hot mic spouting racial slurs during an internal sensitivity training session (of all things)2. No one wants to think of themselves as a racist. However, if the pizzas – and the values – are good enough for Shaq, then surely they’re good enough for us all. The campaign was successful enough that my partner assumed that O’Neal’s involvement with the fast-food chain long predated the widely-publicized debacle. I suspect that he’s far from the only one that’s forgotten that Shaquille was brought on as a PR band-aid for the chain’s once-floundering image.
Some time ago, Shaq also signed on to star in car insurance commercials for The General, an agency that specifically targets drivers with imperfect records (think DUIs, histories of fender benders). On multiple occasions, the world-renowned ex-athlete cites partnering up primarily due to the fact that The General was the only company willing to sell him a policy as a broke college kid. There’s always an emphasis on “broke”, despite the fact that The General often takes advantage of its clientele’s limited resources to charge exorbitant prices well above national auto insurance averages. Without a doubt, one of Shaq’s greatest strengths is walking a fine line with words in a way that you’re never sure whether his actions come from the heart of an empath or the head of a sly salesman.
Another visible example of Shaq possibly advocating for, possibly taking advantage of the proletariat comes in an anecdote surrounding his personal sneaker line. In a recent episode of the Full Send podcast, he explains that he stepped away from a $40 million contract with Reebok in favor of partnering up with his “favorite store, Walmart” to sell shoes at a more affordable price point. He claims to have said to designers, “I don’t give a shit how much money we lose, make these kids look good and feel good”. It all sounds very selfless and noble on a superficial level. That facade starts to fade, however, when you realize that the pool of people seeking bargain footwear will always be exponentially larger than the pool of people willing to pay hundreds of dollars for luxury kicks. In that same August 2021 interview, Shaq claims to have sold 400 million pairs of sneakers. Even if every set of sneakers sold at the lower end of the $19-$29 range mentioned in the podcast, that’s about $7.6 billion in profits.
Simultaneously Very Important and Average Joe, the Shaq that champions the little guy falls perfectly in line with the Shaq that just wants to make you smile and laugh. As wealth inequality increases, the rich and powerful are no longer idolized the way they once were. Virtually no one can relate to a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk. Therefore, the image O’Neal carefully crafts mitigates the attributes that make the ultra-affluent so...hatable. This is what makes Shaq such a success, and in turn, drives him further away from actually being “one of us”.
None of this really answers the question of why Shaquille O’Neal is selling me printer ink. There are very few things I curse at the way I curse at my printer. It is decidedly not fun to manhandle the machine, the antithesis of Shaq’s entire brand philosophy. We get closer to an answer when exploring the “Shaq as Totally Average Guy” angle – but it still seems a bit incomplete.
Until you consider this: perhaps the Shaq Epson has adopted isn’t the same Shaq we’ve all come to know.
There’s no arguing that Shaq the celebrity athlete is a dead relic of the past. His basketball career is over and far beyond any hope of resurrecting. On the other hand, Shaq the brand, an emblem of entertainment and amusement dressed with a smile filled with perfect teeth, is alive and well. However, that’s not exactly what’s being promised to us here, either.
Instead, what’s being sold is Shaq, the genius marketing guru. It’s the Shaq that lies behind the flamboyant caricature. Perhaps it’s the most authentic version of the man the public will ever get to see. It’s the one that wrote their doctorate capstone on "The Duality of Humor and Aggression in Leadership Styles". It’s the one that made something out of nothing.
And, with Epson’s line easy-to-use printers, scanners, and home office supplies, it might be someone you can be, too.
Don’t count on Shaq disappearing from the limelight any time soon. This statement came up during an interview discussing a partnership with Kellogg, making it likely that his words were at least partially chosen to drum up publicity.
This is really funny on a few levels. Shaquille O’Neal’s Maricopa County special deputy’s badge was revoked by none other than Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2008 after O’Neal used the very same derogatory term uttered by Schnatter in a rap mocking Kobe Bryant. It is rich that this was what got Shaq canned, considering Maricopa County’s lurid track record concerning its treatment of BIPOC citizens. Even if we disregard this specific instance, Shaq also received scrutiny in the early ’00s for racially insensitive remarks directed at Yao Ming (O’Neal has since publically apologized). This would make him a questionable brand ambassador at best for a company attempting to bounce back from a race-related controversy, but evidently, Shaq’s charisma outweighs any of his past transgressions.
Damn, Shaq be BUZY. Wild to see it here in context... Loved going down this rabbit hole with you.
Awesome!!