Different Shade Of Gold -- Racism Could Prevent Yamaguchi From Cashing In

By all rights, Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi should be the next queen of Madison Avenue. The bubbly, attractive and well-spoken women's figure skating champion returned home last week after basking in the spotlight of world media attention and emerging - along with Italian skier Alberto Tomba and U.S. speedskater Bonnie Blair - as one of Albertville's most memorable performers.

"She is exactly what advertisers should be looking for," said David Burns, head of a Chicago firm that matches endorsers with products. "She's Dorothy Hamill all over again. She's Peggy Fleming. She's Mary Lou Retton."

Hamill and Fleming, also figure skaters, and Retton, a gymnast, converted their Olympic golds into millions of dollars in endorsements and appearance fees. But for Yamaguchi, Burns predicts, "it won't happen."

Why? According to several image-makers contacted for this story, Yamaguchi is hurt in the ad market by her Japanese-American heritage.

"Generally, advertisers want white bread," Burns said.

"With all the Japan-bashing going on in this country, some companies will just shy away," predicted Jay Goldberg, an agent who has represented such Olympians as Eric Heiden and Mike Eruzione. "That's the sad truth."

Whether it is remains to be seen. A box of Kellogg's Special K cereal featuring Yamaguchi carrying a bouquet of roses is scheduled to hit store shelves by mid-March. Yamaguchi has been featured on the cover of Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and is scheduled for an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show."

"She has the world at her feet," said her agent, Kevin Albrecht of the powerful International Management Group. The advertisers "keep telling me that she's the total package," Albrecht said of the numerous inquiries from potential business partners he's received since the Winter Games.

If they work out, Yamaguchi will become more than a millionaire; she will become the first significant product spokeswoman of Asian-American heritage in memory.

While such black celebrities as Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan and O.J. Simpson have become prominent advertising figures in recent years, Americans of Asian descent have remained almost invisible in TV commercials. Chinese-American tennis star Michael Chang shares a spot for Nuprin pain reliever with Jimmy Connors. And Japanese-American actor Pat Morita has appeared in various ads. Beyond that, there seems to be nothing.

"The market just isn't there for them," said Steven Levitt, president of Market Evaluations/TVQ, a public opinion firm that ranks prominent people in terms of their recognizability and likability.

Levitt's customers are largely advertisers who choose their endorsers based on the survey results.

"I don't know if Orientals stay away from this arena or just get overlooked, but they don't show up well in our studies," Levitt said.

Levitt said that Yamaguchi had not been included in past surveys and that the next survey about athletes is not planned until after the Summer Olympics. He declined to predict how Yamaguchi would rank.

Yamaguchi, 20, is a fourth-generation American. Her father, a dentist, and her mother, a medical secretary, both spent time in internment camps during World War II.

"We're proud Americans," Jim Yamaguchi, Kristi's father, said during the Winter Olympics. "We appreciate our Japanese heritage and culture, and I'm happy to see Kristi becoming interested in it. But we're Americans."

In light of the current political climate as well as the tensions surrounding major-league baseball's admitted disdain for the Japanese-backed offer to buy the Seattle Mariners, Yamaguchi's Olympic victory was a forceful moment, according to Joy Morimoto, spokeswoman for the Japanese-American Citizens League.

"When she was on the podium, waving an American flag, we hoped that would go a long way toward helping people realize that there's a world of difference between Kristi and (Japanese figure skater) Midori Ito," Morimoto said. "They share nothing but a common ancestry."

Morimoto hopes to see Yamaguchi achieve national prominence in the mass media. But she fears that the recent increase in hostility toward Japanese-Americans will lessen her opportunities on Madison Avenue.

"What's fair isn't always what happens," she said.

Certainly, the advertising industry does not always work on the basis of what is fair. After all, notes Nova Lanktree, a Chicago-based ad executive, "this is a country where Jim McMahon made $2.5 million (in endorsements) after winning a Super Bowl and Doug Williams made nothing." McMahon is white, Williams black.

"It's well-known in the advertising business that lily white sells better than Latino, Oriental or Black," Burns said. "That's very unfortunate, especially since this girl is a native-born American with good looks and a great personality. But it's a fact of the business."

Burns predicts that Yamaguchi will land two or three ads, each paying her in the range of $50,000. That's not bad money, until one compares it with the $1 million-a-year deals given to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana or even the $500,000 that retired NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recently got to plug a line of personal computers.

Marty Blackman, president of Blackman & Raber, a New York City advertising agency, said: "Being Oriental doesn't help - let's put it that way. You would be surprised at how easily people in America get mixed up. With Kristi's looks and her last name, some people will always believe that she's Japanese, no matter how many nights she starred on CBS.

"She's the queen of this year's Olympics, so I think she'll get her share. But it won't be like the figure skaters before her."

In the end, that might be OK with Yamaguchi. Her stated post-Olympic plan - at least beforehand - was "not to do the Mary Lou Retton thing of chasing 10 endorsements at once," said Yuki Saegusa. another of her agents. "She's looking for one or two major endorsements from quality companies - that's all."

Kellogg, presumably, is one of those companies.

"We feel that Kristi's accomplishments should not be less appreciated or promoted than any athlete of any origin," Company spokeswoman Karen MacLeod said. "We think she has a very positive image as an athlete and an American."