On July 20th, the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first successful manned lunar landing mission. Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon’s surface, said of his triumphant walk, “that’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

If you take a look at our client list, you might notice that Neil Armstrong seems a little out of place – after all, he never sold a hit record or starred in a Hollywood classic. But at CMG Worldwide, we don’t just represent performers – we represent icons. Walk the halls of our headquarters in Indianapolis and you’ll find pictures of the legendary entertainers, athletes, authors and history-makers that created American popular culture. Each one of our clients has inspired the world to challenge conventions, work hard, and dream big. Because of Jackie Robinson, any baseball player has a fair shot at the Major League. Because of Bettie Page, beauty doesn’t fit a singular definition. Because of Neil Armstrong, we know that anything is possible – even a regular guy from a small Ohio town can make it to the moon and back.

Senior Anna Roesler committed on Friday, June 18, 2009, to continue her swimming career at the collegiate level. Anna will attend Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. The Tars are an NCAA Division II program that competes in the Sunshine State Conference (SSC) under the direction of Dr. Rich Morris. (A “Tar” is a sailor. Centuries ago, during the age of tall sailing ships, British sailors were known as “Tars.” Rollins connection with the Tars began in World War I when a small Navy vessel was stationed on Lake Virginia, which borders half the Rollins campus.)

Anna, daughter of Mark and Amy Roesler, received her fourth varsity letter in swimming this season. She was Academic All-State Honorable Mention this season. Anna was awarded a $100,000 academic scholarship at Rollins College.

Congratulations Anna!

He kept statues of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe at his Neverland ranch, and married Elvis’ daughter. He bought publishing rights to the songs of John Lennon’s Beatles. He said he and Princess Diana used to talk about the downside of celebrity.

There’s no sign he identified with James Dean, but otherwise Michael Jackson seemed to have made connections long ago with the Western world’s small circle of all-too-mortal “immortals.”

Now that Jackson too has died young, the question is whether he deserves a spot on that unfortunate A-list – or goes straight to the top of that list.

“I think you just got the `A’ in the A-list,” said Stacy Brown, a newspaper reporter who co-authored the 2005 book “Michael Jackson: The Man Behind the Mask.”

“You have to transcend cultural and generational barriers,” Nate Thomas, who teaches film and pop culture at California State University, Northridge, said of the qualifications for the dead-icons roster. “I would say Michael will stand above the others.” Individual interest and taste will determine who you think belongs on what might be called the DOA-list, the stars who burned bright in life and often brighter after – and maybe because of – their premature deaths.

Jimi Hendrix? Kurt Cobain? Roberto Clemente? Steve Prefontaine? Steve McQueen? Judy Garland? Hank Williams? Barbaro?

After witnessing fans’ response to Jackson’s sudden death at age 50 on Thursday in Los Angeles, few would dispute that his best-selling recordings, groundbreaking music videos and lifetime in the often-harsh spotlight earn him a place in the pantheon.

But the case can be made that Jackson is bigger than any of them, a more popular pop musician than Elvis or Lennon, a more intriguing sex symbol than Marilyn, a more tangible face of fragility than Diana, a voice of more generations than James Dean.

It’s hard to have a 45-year career AND die young. Jackson worked from age 5, when the Jackson 5 debuted, to age 50, rehearsing for the scheduled comeback concerts that had sold $85 million worth of tickets. He grew up with the generation that now runs the country, and his appeal cut across age groups, many older people loving the innocent-looking child singer of the Jackson 5 days and kids identifying with the Peter Pan-like character of his solo career.

Jackson’s appeal

If Jackson’s music and death make him the Elvis of his generation, it’s an expansive generation.

Thomas, the CSUN professor, who is 51, said he remembers dancing to Jackson 5 records as a child in Ohio and wanting to BE Michael Jackson.

“As I became a teenager, I still wanted to be Michael Jackson,” Thomas said. “Then, when I grew up and went to college and went on to teach at universities, I still wanted to be Michael Jackson.”

Jackson was the first celebrity Thomas saw in the flesh when he moved to California in 1980.

“My first month in L.A., I’m excited to be in Hollywood, and I’m stopped at the corner of Highland (Avenue) and Hollywood Boulevard. He pulled up in a black Rolls-Royce, bobbing his head to the music (on the car stereo),” Thomas said. “I honked, and he looked over and waved.”

Thomas argues that Jackson seemed to clear barriers to broad popularity in a way few entertainers could. Racially, he was African-American, but he didn’t present himself as black either musically or personally – to the point, apparently, of literally lightening his skin. Sexually, his falsetto and surgically refined features made him androgynous. Geographically, he was a product of Indiana but achieved worldwide popularity.

“I think an icon has to transcend all these cultural things,” Thomas said. “We’re not saying, `He’s a black icon’ (or) `He’s an Italian icon.’ … He would probably be the pre-eminent icon.”

Brown, who co-wrote his Jackson biography with Bob Jones, agreed that Jackson cut across race and gender.

“My young children are fascinated with Michael,” said Brown, a former Los Angeles Daily News reporter who now writes about the media for the Scranton, N.J., Times-Tribune. “I know people 90 years old who are fascinated with Michael.”

Brown said he helped to produce a concert in Scranton paying tribute to Motown Records and New York’s Apollo Theater. When Rebbie Jackson, the oldest Jackson sister, performed Michael’s “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” a 94-year-old woman in the audience got up and danced.

He `saw it coming’

Jackson’s seeming identification with dead celebrities made sense to Brown. The writer had said before Jackson’s death that he expected the singer-dancer to die young. He said Friday, “I think, frankly, Michael Jackson saw it coming.”

“One of the things that struck me about Michael Jackson was his fascination with being recognized as the best and the biggest, the most influential,” Brown said. “His primary interest was always Elvis Presley. He was on a mission that he was going to be bigger than Elvis.”

Brown said Jackson was determined to top the success of his best-selling album “Thriller,” believing that would stamp himself as “the undisputed `King.”‘ He thinks the effort to prepare for the London concert series scheduled to begin in mid-July contributed to Jackson’s death, initially attributed to cardiac arrest.

“He knew he had to do it (the concert series). He got money up front. He knew if he bowed out (without) a legitimate excuse, his career was totally over and his life was ruined. This was all or nothing,” Brown said. “The pressure he put on himself was enormous.”

If Brown is right, then Jackson’s quest for immortality paid off in a certain way – in the brand of immortality that comes, paradoxically, with dying.

A legendary life

The Jackson brand seemed not to be diminished by the controversies of his later life: child-molestation allegations, other weird behavior, financial problems.

Perhaps as controversy overshadowed his music during a 12-year break from live performing, he became a bigger icon. He painted the full spectrum of celebrity in all its lightest and darkest hues, while creating mystery about the career phase that will never come.

Mark Roesler, founder of CMG Worldwide, which represents the estates of famous people – including Monroe and Dean – responded to Jackson’s death with a statement on his company’s Web site.

“Michael Jackson was, and will remain, one of those icons,” said Roesler, adding that Jackson reminds him of Dean, the Academy Award-winning actor who died at 24 in a 1955 car crash. “His death couldn’t have come at a worse time. He was prepared to re-enter the spotlight and start touring again after a long hiatus. Like Dean, he had reached a turning point in his career, and his future could not have been brighter.”

On his blog, Harvard Business School professor and marketing expert John Quelch wrote Friday that Jackson’s popularity illustrated 10 pieces of advice for how to “build your personal brand.” Suggestion No. 10: “Die young.”

“The likelihood of a Jackson comeback will forever be debated,” Quelch wrote. “Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe James Dean, and now Michael Jackson – all leave to our imagination thoughts of what might have been. When a brand icon is torn from us prematurely, unexpectedly, it figures even larger in our collective memory.”

kevin.modesti@dailynews.com

To see original article, please click here.

In death, will Michael Jackson be more profitable?

(CNN) — Michael Jackson’s financial woes were well documented: Numerous lawsuits, loss of control of his beloved Neverland and reports that he was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt all point to a complex money mess that trailed the King of Pop as vigilantly as his most ardent fans.

But might he find the financial success in death that eluded him in the last years of his life?

“A few years ago, a gentleman came along with the public company called CKX, and they purchased the intellectual property rights associated with Elvis Presley and that was in excess of $100 million,” said Mark Roesler, chairman and chief executive officer of CMG Worldwide, a business and marketing agent whose client roster boasts several deceased celebrities, including James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.

“The most logical question is [whether Michael Jackson is] worth more than Elvis,” Roesler added. “And I think the answer to that would be yes.”

Experts predict that millions could flow into the Jackson estate coffers with renewed interest in his life and music after his unexpected death.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, Jackson-related titles dominated the top nine positions on Billboard’s Top Pop Catalog Albums chart released Wednesday, a feat never before accomplished.

Billboard said that with his “Number Ones” album at No. 1 on the chart with sales of 108,000 (an increase of 2,340 percent), it marked the first time a catalog album has sold more than the No. 1 current set on the Billboard 200 albums chart by outselling the Black Eyed Peas’ “The E.N.D.” which was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 88,000 sold in the past week.
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None of this comes as a surprise to Roesler, whose company was a pioneer in the field of getting compensation for deceased celebrities.

“Intellectual property” refers to creations of the mind such as inventions, literary and artistic works, as well as symbols, names, images and designs used in commerce. They are considered intangible assets.

Roesler, who served as an expert witness during the Goldman family’s civil suit against O.J. Simpson and worked with singer Nick Lachey during his divorce from Jessica Simpson, said those intangible assets can be valued.

That means that when Madison Avenue comes calling to use an image of Jackson or a song that he has copyrighted for advertising purposes, that could mean millions of dollars paid to the estate, Roesler said.

“There’s really not that much of a difference between the living clients we represent and the deceased client, nor is there much of a difference in how they are used except the obvious in that [the deceased] can’t personally endorse a product,” said Roesler whose CMG also represents historical figures including Mark Twain as well as sports figures such as Babe Ruth and living celebs like Scott Baio.

“We have a program with Lee jeans over in Japan that uses [the image of] James Dean on one line, and they use Brad Pitt on another.”

Henry Schafer is executive vice president for Marketing Evaluations, Inc., The Q Scores Company in Manhasset, New York, which provides advertising clients with data on the appeal and likability of celebrities.

Schafer said his firm had been measuring Jackson consistently up through 2006, at which point they stopped because of lack of interest from their clients.

Back then, Schafer said, Jackson did not score well.

“Basically, two out of three consumers didn’t like him,” Schafer said. “It was a pretty strong negative reaction given the trial he went through, the personal problems and the lack of performing. So there was really no need to update his scores.”

The pop icon will probably score extremely high in universal recognition, Schafer said, right up there with the likes of Lucille Ball, who Marketing Evaluations currently rates as the public’s favorite dead celebrity.

As for how well Jackson will rank with consumers, Schafer said that depends on a number of factors, including what the investigation into his death reveals.

“He’ll probably have better scores in death than he did as a living individual,” Schafer said. “That’s most likely what’s going to happen because of the sympathetic reaction. So then it becomes a question of the attributes associated with Michael Jackson, how marketable are they and to what extent can his name be associated with different types of products and services.”

Schafer said Jackson will be added to a study on the appeal of deceased celebrities scheduled for the fall, which will measure him against other deceased advertising icons, especially those with similar troubled stories like Elvis Presley.

The comparisons between “The King” and “The King of Pop” are apt considering the similar circumstances of their final years.

At the time of their deaths, both had not had hit albums in some time, were considered to be reclusive and still elicited frenzied reactions among fans.

And there is also the issue of prescription drugs and reports of questionable doctors, confirmed in the aftermath of the death of Presley and speculated about with Jackson.

Presley’s estate was able to navigate what at the time was a controversial death into a vast empire complete with licensing deals, marketing of Elvis-related merchandise and the transformation of his Graceland estate into a pilgrimage destination for fans.

The millions of dollars his estate produced annually have landed him in the Forbes rankings of “Top Earning Dead Celebrities,” where he placed first last year, earning more than $52 million.

Kevin Kern, director of public relations for Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. said in an interview with CNN that, “We are politely declining all media requests of this nature. We don’t wish to get involved in the Michael Jackson media frenzy.”

He instead referenced a link on the company’s Web site which outlines how the management team of The Elvis Presley Trust and its business entity, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. achieved its success.

Forbes senior editor Matthew Miller said he doubts Jackson’s estate will be able to duplicate that level of success.

It’s unclear at this point the total value of Jackson’s assets, including his interest in the Beatles catalogue, Miller said, and it could take years to sort everything out.

“If I had to venture a guess, and it’s only a hypothesis at this point, I would think that Jackson’s estate ends up in bankruptcy and the question will be do they have to sell off assets in order to pay off the debts,” Miller said.

Miller said he could not imagine that Neverland will become Jackson’s Graceland because of his past legal issues.

“We are looking at Michael Jackson through rose-colored glasses right now, but if you look at him as an entertainment brand…he will be known for two things,” Miller said. “He was one of the greatest entertainers in the world and was continually accused of child molestation. Those accusations stemmed from activities that [allegedly] happened at Neverland Ranch, so I don’t think people are going to continually go there and pay money to see it.”

CMG chairman and CEO Mark Roesler has a different take on it.

Jackson was found innocent of those charges and controversy has long plagued stars even after death, said Roesler, who pointed to examples of emerging stories over the years about celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe.
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Even though the actress has been dead almost a half a century, she still has appeal, and Roesler predicts the Jackson “is still going to be relevant generations from now” despite all of the speculation.

“You constantly see rumors about celebrities, and it just feeds the legend,” Roesler said. “It’s all part of the public fascination.”

By Lisa Respers France
CNN

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