When You're Here, You're Family -- But What About a Playboy Model?

By REBECCA DANA

Kendra Wilkinson, a Playboy cover model, television star and one of Hugh Hefner's three live-in girlfriends, professes deep love for the Olive Garden Italian restaurant chain.

The feeling isn't mutual.

To the consternation of Olive Garden's marketers, who have spent millions crafting the franchise's family-friendly image, the 23-year-old adult-entertainment star and aspiring real-estate mogul repeatedly uses her spotlight to rave about its midprice eateries. Ms. Wilkinson hoists Olive Garden doggie bags in the air and extols its chicken parmigiana. She once scandalized European diners by declaring the Olive Garden preferable to any restaurants in Italy.

Ms. Wilkinson, whose tan skin and blonde-white hair project classic California, isn't on the payroll. She is a rogue brand ambassador: a celebrity who is genuinely, publicly devoted to a product or service, even if he or she doesn't quite embody the values that the brand's managers may be trying to convey.

Executives at Olive Garden declined to discuss the uninvited spokesmodel. One official says the company has tried to walk a fine line with its response, maintaining the chain's wholesome image without alienating potential customers. "I don't feel comfortable talking about this...because it is a complicated issue for the brand," says Michele Kay, executive vice president of WPP Group's Grey advertising firm, which handles the Olive Garden account.

Ms. Wilkinson says that when she started praising the restaurant on television and on her very popular MySpace page, it never crossed her mind what the folks at Olive Garden might think. "I don't speak about it to get paid for it," she says. "I speak about it because I love it. I understand they're a family restaurant, but I think it can't hurt them to have a little spice."

Backfired Endorsements

As media outlets fragment and the advertising landscape grows cluttered, companies are increasingly realizing the value of a popular star's sincere -- and unpaid -- endorsement of a product. In 2003, Thai Union Frozen PCL's Chicken of the Sea capitalized on a big pop-culture moment by inviting singer Jessica Simpson to visit their offices. Ms. Simpson had just made headlines for wondering aloud, on national television, whether the canned product contained chicken or tuna.

But unsolicited endorsements can backfire, particularly when the star is controversial. In 2006, the hip-hop community was publicly embracing an array of luxury brands, rapping about Courvoisier cognac, wearing Tommy Hilfiger clothing and driving Cadillac Escalades. In the summer of 2006, the Economist quoted an executive at Champagne Louis Roederer's Cristal saying, "We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business."

The rapper Jay-Z called the comment racist and instigated an embarrassing boycott. Since then, other companies beset with unplanned, and perhaps undesirable, endorsements have reacted with a careful mix of distance and passivity.

"The question is: 'Do you have to love someone who loves you?'" says Dave Balter, founder and chief executive of BzzAgent, a Boston-based word-of-mouth media company. The answer is a squishy yes and no. "The worst thing to do is turn off someone who is that passionate about you," says Mr. Balter. "A brand doesn't have to actively embrace someone like Kendra, but they should certainly be willing to accept the fact that she's willing to tell the world how much she loves them."

Starbucks Corp. has a policy of remaining mum when celebrities turn up with its familiar coffee cups on the pages of tabloid magazines. The company is just as quiet when popular actress Reese Witherspoon or troubled pop star Britney Spears is photographed with its product.

Politicians eager to protect their candidacies have faced a similar dilemma. In the 2008 election cycle, unsought endorsers have swarmed the presidential candidates. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton earned the support of O.J. Simpson. Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama had to disavow a song released by the rapper Ludacris in late July that praised the candidate and bashed Sen. Clinton. On July 29, pop icon Phil Spector, about to face retrial for charges related to the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson, wore a "Barack Obama Rocks" pin to a court hearing in Los Angeles.

Yet Sen. Obama has also benefited incalculably from an array of celebrity endorsements, including those of Oprah Winfrey, Scarlett Johansson and Black Eyed Peas' frontman Will.i.am.

"This is the double-edged sword of brand advocacy," says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of Nielsen Online Strategic Services and author of a book about brand ambassadors. "Generally speaking, brands benefit from unprompted advocacy, but every once in awhile, there will be surprises. It's very difficult to manage."

Earlier this year, buoyed by her starring role on "The Girls Next Door," a highly rated reality show that follows the lives of Mr. Hefner's girlfriends, Ms. Wilkinson launched a modeling competition for attractive Olive Garden waitresses. The prize: a nude Playboy pictorial. Ms. Wilkinson took the contestants' photographs herself.

"Our position is that our team members as private citizens have freedom to participate," says Olive Garden spokesman Mara Frazier. "While we're not endorsing the initiative, we're not making choices for our employees." Olive Garden is a unit of Orlando, Fla.-based Darden Restaurants Inc., which also owns the Red Lobster seafood chain.

Playboy has made similar mischief before, running contests for such groups as employees of Wal-Mart and McDonald's and students from Ivy League schools. But Ms. Wilkinson's affection for Olive Garden comes from a deeper place.

'My Soul Food'

The San Diego native says she made frequent trips to the restaurant during her childhood, developing a taste for the artichoke dip and the all-you-can-eat salad and breadsticks. She calls it "my soul food."

"I love the Olive Garden so much because I grew up going there," she says. "That used to be the place we would go for Mother's Day, for birthdays. My grandpa just died, and right after his funeral, we went to the Olive Garden."

During a recent tour of Italy, Ms. Wilkinson, followed by "The Girls Next Door" cameras, was asked how that country's finest cuisine compares with her favorite restaurant's.

"It doesn't," she declared, flustering some of her dining companions. Ms. Wilkinson now says she meant to say that the food is on par -- but what's missing is the sentimental attachment she has to the Olive Garden.

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34,520 People (and Counting) Want a Chevrolet Volt

By Chuck Squatriglia

The Chevrolet Volt won't roll off an assembly line for another two years, but 34,520 people in 60 countries and all 50 states would buy one tomorrow if they could.

Lyle Dennis, a New York neurologist and the world's No. 1 Volt fanboy, has spent more than a year compiling an unofficial waiting list of prospective buyers over at GM-Volt.com. He's posted some of the details on his blog, where they're updated in real time. More than 1,500 people have signed on in the 24 hours since the details started bouncing around the Internet.

"I don't think GM, when it announced this car, had any idea how big it would become," Dennis told us. "I've always believed that by the time the car was produced we'd have 100,000 people waiting for one. Now I think that might be low."

GM's got an impressive marketing division and it's undoubtedly got a line on how the range-extended electric vehicle will sell when production starts in November, 2010. But it would do well to check in with Dennis, because his list represents $258 million in potential sales.

Dennis fell for the car when GM unveiled it at the Detroit Auto Show in 2007, and he launched GM-Volt.com a few days later to build support for the car. He attracted the attention of executives and engineers working on the Volt, and his tireless cheerleading prompted the General to accept his invitation to meet with Volt fanatics earlier this year during the New York Auto Show.

Eager to prove there's a market for the car and convince GM to build it in big numbers, Dennis started the unofficial waiting list in May, 2007. The prospective buyers who've signed up so far are willing to pay an average of $31,380.53 for the Volt.

By far the greatest interest is in California, where 1,217 people want one of the cars "Maximum Bob" Lutz has called the auto industry's moonshot. But the list includes prospective buyers in such far-flung places as Aruba, Georgia (the country and the state) and Uzbekistan. There's even someone in Vatican City who wants one, and someone in Saudi Arabia signed on today.

"Demand for the car has been intensifying," Dennis says, noting the list passed 10,000 on January 26 and hit 20,000 on May 4. Rising gas prices undoubtedly drive some of the interest, but Dennis believes interest in the Volt goes deeper than that.

"People want to get off oil," he says. "This is about what the car represents, and that's really struck a chord."

GM isn't saying what the car will cost, but Lutz has suggested it'll be in the $30,000 to $40,000 ballpark. All spokesman Robert Peterson would say is, "We've always been committed to making this an affordable car so we can sell it in volume."

How great a volume? Look for initial runs in the tens of thousands while GM gets costs under control and the technology gains a foothold in the market. The goal, however, is to sell the Volt globally and adapt its drivetrain to other models. "This is by no stretch of the imagination a niche vehicle or a one-off," Peterson says.

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GM: Rechargeable Car on Schedule

By AP/TOM KRISHER

(TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.) — Early versions of the Chevrolet Volt's battery packs are powerful enough to run the high-stakes rechargeable car, but dozens of issues remain before General Motors Corp. can start selling the revolutionary vehicle in 2010 as planned.

The Volt's chief engineer is on a tight schedule to figure out how the car will handle the batteries' weight, dissipate their heat and mechanically transfer their power to the wheels. That's not to mention the list of issues that have nothing to do with the fact that the car plugs in to the wall for recharging.

But the 47-year-old veteran GM engineer who was recruited from a GM post in Germany to run the high-profile project is driven by knowing the entire company's future could rest with it. "At this point, there's nothing standing in our way of continuing to do what we said we're going to do," Andrew Farah, the Volt's chief engineer, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Work on the Volt, introduced as a concept car at the 2007 Detroit auto show, has taken on a more urgent pace with gasoline hovering near $4 per gallon and the U.S. auto market dramatically shifting from trucks to cars.

The car is designed to run on an electric motor powered by a battery pack. Drivers will recharge the vehicle from a standard home wall outlet. The Volt will be able to travel 40 miles on a full charge, and a small gasoline engine will recharge the batteries to keep it rolling on longer trips. GM says the vehicle will get the equivalent of 150 miles per gallon.

But for now, as a new commercial airing during the Olympics touts the Volt as the pinnacle of GM's fuel economy improvements and hybrid lineup, Farah and hundreds of other engineers are working quickly to deal with the inevitable glitches from new technology.

They must figure out how to keep the battery cool and adjust the car's suspension so it performs well while carrying a 400-pound battery pack. "All those things result in lots of other mechanical parts and bits and pieces that have nothing to do with electrical energy," Farah said. "So we've had some issues there."

Simultaneously, other GM workers are testing batteries to make sure they last at least 10 years or 150,000 miles. It would cost more than $10,000 to replace them.

Other workers are making the Volt more functional, giving it the room and feel of a regular car "such that the vehicle is not just a battery on wheels," Farah said.

The early concept, a low-riding, sleek silver hatchback, was uncomfortable to sit in and not very functional, Farah said. The new five-door hatchback version more resembles a normal car, a little larger than a Honda Civic. "It'll have a similar set of visual cues and some of the features that were on the concept car," Farah said.

Late last year, it looked like the Volt's schedule would be derailed by battery delays. Two competing battery makers — Compact Power Inc. of Troy, Mich., which is working with parent LG Chem of Korea, and Frankfurt, Germany-based Continental Automotive Systems, which is working with GM and A123 Systems Inc. of Watertown, Mass. — fell 10 weeks behind on delivering the power packs.

GM engineers used the time to work on the mechanical connections. Batteries arrived in January at GM's sprawling Warren, Mich., technical center, and the team has nearly erased the 10-week deficit, Farah said.

The Volt also is going through the same design issues as a new car powered by a conventional engine, Farah said. "The program has all of those same things built in. We're just doing them faster because we have to," he said.

Although GM has promised to begin selling the Volt in a little more than two years, experts wonder if it will be ready in time, whether enough batteries will be available to sell the cars in significant numbers, and whether the cost can be reduced to make the car affordable to the masses. GM has said the Volt will cost $30,000 to $40,000, and that it expects to sell 100,000 per year starting in 2012. While ambitious, that's still 81,000 fewer than the number of Prius gas-electric hybrids sold by Toyota last year.

Brett Smith, assistant director for manufacturing and technology at the Center for Automotive Research, said even in small volumes, the Volt is a game-changer.

"It's an entirely different technology. It's an entirely different powertrain layout. It's a huge step forward," he said Tuesday at an industry conference in Traverse City.

Smith wonders, however, whether early buyers will wind up being part of an extended test. "This and the other vehicles that are coming out in plug-in form, are for all intents and purposes because of some timing, they are in a lot of ways prototype vehicles being put on the market to test," he said.

Much of GM's push on the Volt is designed to recapture the technology leadership image from Toyota Motor Corp., which has led the way in alternative powertrains with its Prius gasoline-electric hybrid car, Smith said.

"There's no doubt that General Motors realized the importance of positive media coverage with the Prius," he said. Toyota also is pushing to get its plug-in electric vehicle to market in 2010, while Ford Motor Co., which is testing 20 on roads in California, says it is five years away from producing them in significant numbers.

Smith said despite uncertainties, GM has given every indication that the technology will be ready. But between now and then, it's Farah's job to eliminate the uncertainties, banking on experience from work on GM's EV-1 electric car in the 1980s.

Farah, who started with GM in 1984, at first was reluctant to leave his German engineering assignment to lead the Volt's development. He thought it would just be an experiment with a life span like the EV-1, which GM took off the market a few years after its debut. But Farah relented after finding out how important the Volt is to GM's future.

He knew there would be early mornings and late nights away from his family, but said he gets great satisfaction from working on a car that has the potential to end America's dependence on oil and the environmental and political problems that come with it.

High gas prices already have forced a major lifestyle changes in the U.S., with people taking fewer vacations or weekend trips. Americans drove 53.2 billion fewer miles as gas prices climbed from November through June than they did over the same eight-month period a year earlier, the Federal Highway Administration said Wednesday.

The Volt, Farah said, can keep people mobile with only the adjustment of having to plug in a car at night. "It's an opportunity to change the way we consume energy without significantly changing our lifestyle," he said.

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