Cashing in on Michael’s Legacy

What makes you think he will be exploited in the worst sense of the word?
First of all, there's the financial quagmire. You can read as much as you want about Michael Jackson. And you can't get any clarity on whether the estate is going to have a lot of money or going to be in debt. The numbers are all over the place—that he's a half billion dollars in debt and that the estate is worth half a billion dollars. There's the Beatles library. It's going to take them years to figure out whether they have money or whether they don't have money. So the question becomes, are they going to be just so focused on the revenue-generating opportunities of Michael Jackson? Do they go the exploitation route—commemorative coins and plates and replica gloves and jackets with epaulets on them, and all of that. There's the potential here for this to become an Elvis Presley kind of strategy.

What would you do?
The body of music is enough to preserve the legacy of Michael Jackson. Don't forget, he's got a pretty mixed reputation. Two weeks ago, remember, his Q [popularity] scores were extremely low because of all the weirdness about his life. Now his Q scores are through the roof because there's a lot of sympathy, and people are focusing on the music. But that will die down. There's a mixed reputation out there for him. So, hopefully, the future and those in control will focus on his incredible musical legacy and leave it at that.

It appears that—for now, anyway—the high-profile entertainment lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain have emerged as the bona fide executors of Jackson's estate. Do you know them?
I don't know either of them. I don't know anything about them. My suspicion is that neither of them really knows anything about building a strategy to build a Michael Jackson brand and create a legacy for Michael Jackson. Music, they probably know. So I assume they know how to commercialize and exploit and sustain the incredible body of work that Michael Jackson compiled over his lifetime.

What's the prospect for Neverland becoming the next Graceland?
I've seen some people say absolutely. It's going to be bigger than Graceland because it's in Los Angeles and it's easier to get to. Los Angeles is already a tourist destination. I've seen other people say, wait a second, he abandoned the place four years ago. It was the scene of child-molestation charges [of which Jackson was acquitted in a trial], and we don't think that people are going to be that interested in seeing it. So who knows? If it turns into a destination, my bet is there's going to be a souvenir shop at Neverland. And there are going to be belt buckles and refrigerator magnets. If they open up Neverland as a museum, they will probably not going to be able to get away from that. The question is how far would they want to take that outside of the Neverland Museum.

What advice—two or three things—would you offer? Or will you charge me for that?
Well, I do charge for it. But since you're a lowly reporter ... The advice I would have is, don't rush into anything. Don't think that the frenzy that's going on now is the way to take advantage of his legacy. There's plenty of time. Obviously, understand the rights first. Understand what the music strategy is going to be. Then put together the Michael Jackson brand strategy, which has various components to it. It could include product, but you've got to be very careful on the product side that you are not tarnishing the image. This is a tarnished image already because of the life that he led, and the accusations made against him, true or false. I would recommend not tarnishing it further by allowing a bunch of commemorative products to get released into the marketplace.

You represent living celebrities and, in the case of Warhol, dead celebrities. What are the challenges in representing the later?
If someone comes up with the idea that there can be a fashion line of Michael Jackson apparel, quite honestly, they'd be smoking something. It's hard enough for a celebrity to launch an apparel collection, but at least the consumers have this belief that the celebrity actually had something to do with the look, feel, and design of the apparel—that the apparel reflects that celebrity's own taste. The consumer can aspire to be like that celebrity. It's pretty hard to do that with a deceased celebrity. Fashion apparel for deceased celebrities have rarely worked. In Japan, there's James Dean jeans, I think, or something like that. But the Japanese market is a little bit odd. In the United States, fashion apparel based on deceased celebrities has no reason for being.

What of the people out there buying Michael Jackson stuff—albums and the like, for example—from each other on Web sites?
I understand there's stuff being sold on eBay now that's going for a ton of money. People are buying things, thinking they are making an investment. They're not. Once the frenzy passes, all of the albums that you have in your basement, the Michael Jackson albums, they'll all go back to being $10.

© 2009