The Curse of the Gillette 3 and and the joys of photoshop...

You can not escape the seeming untamed joy of sports and brand commentators with this story. Its everywhere.

First Henry re-enacts the Hand of God and puts those puckly Irish out World Cup (leading to farcical debate about the '33rd team'), then Mr Reliable, Tiger Woods is caught up in a car-crash-cum-domestic which has seen debate and innuendo grow as he kept his silence. Its now not a question of whether he had an affair but how many.

So 2 out of the Gillette 3 have brought a certain amount of, how to put this, somewhat negative publicity their way and as a result heaped unwanted focus on to the Gilette brand which they are paid handsomely to represent.

Federer appears to have avoided the full curse so far - I do not think that failing to win the ATP Finals really puts him in 'curse' territory. He is simply not having a great season by his high standards.

There are big questions over what Gillettes response will be. Well I would imagine they currently have a team of lawyers pouring over the various contracts but I would be surprised if Gillette seek to pull the plug on these high profile, long-term deals. However, there is some evidence of a level of embarrassment on Gillettes part. I've just seen this post on Huffington Post - evidence of a bit of diplomatic editing.

It looks like Gillette have altered the French version of the current work to remove all conitations of Henry being a handball-ist. Note the dofference between the old Spanish version of this opening frame and the new French version

Old Spanish version of Gillette ad

New French version of same ad. Not lack of football in Henry's palm.

Question is: will they removed the car keys from Wood's pocket next?