Competing in business is hard enough, but how are you going to compete against Aquaman?
Not the fictional DC comic book superhero, of course, but Jason Momoa, who plays the character in movies, including the 2018 Aquaman and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, due out in 2022.
Momoa already had a water brand that uses aluminum cans rather than PET bottles, Mananalu, and now he's a spokesman for Ball Corp.'s aluminum cups, a product taking on Solo Co.'s red cups in an ad campaign.
As Steve Toloken writes, Kristin Kelley, global head of communications with Amcor Rigid Packaging, brought up the new competition during the Plastics Packaging Summit.
"They have certainly put a lot of dollars and a lot of resources behind education, awareness and marketing, and that is something we can lift and shift, and we should, if we expect to have that same sort of impact," she said.
Her comments got the Plastics News staff thinking about who might bring star power for a plastics PR campaign. The bad news is, we couldn't name anyone offhand who is not a culturally divisive personality.
If we take a path leading us to celebrities whose brands have been involved with recycled plastics, plus add a comics connection to keep up with Momoa's credentials ... Jessica Alba? The actress portrayed Sue Storm in Fantastic Four in 2005 and 2007 (although neither of those movies was well accepted), and her health and beauty line, The Honest Co., uses post-consumer recycled plastics and encourages recycling, although it also brags about how it allows consumers to use fewer plastic bottles each year.
Maybe the answer would be to go straight to comics, but Plastic Man doesn't have the same cache as Aquaman, despite PN's Frank Esposito's best efforts.
Do you have any ideas? There are a lot of people in the industry who would be interested to hear them.
