Executives at the rental car company Hertz knew what they wanted to project to potential business travelers in the 1970s: speed, reliability and efficiency.
They quickly realized that one man radiated all of those qualities. So they made the football player O.J. Simpson, who died on Wednesday at the age of 76, the first Black star of a national television advertising campaign.
“They had a slogan — the Superstar in Rent‐a‐Car — and I was the current reigning superstar as far as the competition was concerned,” Simpson told The New York Times in 1976.
The campaign would pay dividends for both the company and its pitchman, who in early Hertz ads was shown racing through an airport terminal and leaping over rope barriers, clutching a briefcase instead of cradling a football. In some of Simpson’s later ads, average Janes and Joes cheered him on as he ran, yelling, “Go, O.J., Go!”
At that time, decades before Simpson was acquitted of killing his former wife and her friend, he was known for dazzling on the field for the University of Southern California and the Buffalo Bills. His athleticism and speed made Simpson the perfect choice for the Hertz commercials that widened his stardom beyond the gridiron, offering him up as a suave, smiling promoter known to football fans and businessmen alike.
The ads also opened Simpson a path for more endorsements: sporting goods, soft drinks, razor blades.
“People identify with me and I don’t think I’m that offensive to anyone,” he told The Times. He added: “People have told me I’m colorless. Everyone likes me. I stay out of politics, I don’t try to save people for the Lord and, besides, I don’t look that out of character in a suit.”
Hertz originally had no intention of using a celebrity in its advertising, planning instead to feature a harried businessman dashing through an airport. The company’s customer base was overwhelmingly white men, and it was unclear at the time how receptive mainstream audiences would be to a Black athlete sprinting across their screens.
But when Hertz executives examined their campaign, they decided it needed a personality. And Simpson proved too enticing to pass on. A Heisman Trophy winner at U.S.C., he could appeal to customers who shared his zeal for achievement.
The public perception of Simpson had changed drastically by 1994, when television networks followed live as he fled the authorities in his white Ford Bronco after his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald L. Goldman, were found dead outside her home. Simpson, who was charged with their murders and acquitted in a criminal trial, was found liable in a civil trial and ordered to pay their families $33.5 million in damages.
When Simpson was arrested, he was still under contract with Hertz, which stopped putting him in ads. The company did not respond to a request for comment after his death.
Over the years, Hertz changed its slogans — at one point to “Where Winners Rent” — and partnered with the golfer Arnold Palmer in hopes of duplicating its success with Simpson. These days, the retired quarterback Tom Brady can be seen pitching electric vehicles in a new Hertz campaign called “Let’s Go!”
But it is Simpson who remains forever intertwined with Hertz. He played golf with company leaders, attended company events and even hosted parties for its best and most loyal customers, according to a 1994 article by The Washington Post.
The partnership drove up sales and profits for Hertz, while Simpson annually received hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few days of work. It also vaulted him to a new level of fame, extending his career in ways that many athletes have tried to emulate since. (Simpson found some success as an actor in movies and television.)
“Hertz put a lot of faith in this campaign and in all my years of playing football,” Simpson told The Times. “It has made me 10 times more identifiable than I was before.”
Hertz’s partnership with Simpson was so strong that its chief executive, Frank A. Olson, negotiated directly with him. The Post reported that after Simpson was charged in 1989 with assaulting his wife, he called Olson to tell him the accusation was overblown.
Olson died on Wednesday, the same day as Simpson. The former Hertz executive was 91.
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
