Hertz kept O.J. Simpson as its face for 19 years; one 1994 weekend erased the campaign

In 1975 Hertz's ad agency, Ted Bates, chose a running back who embodied speed. Simpson's first spots — sprinting through airports in a business suit — made him the first Black man hired for a major corporate national advertising campaign, a call approved by chairman Frank Olson. The bet worked: brand recall jumped more than 40%, and in its first year Hertz's net profit rose 50% to $42.2 million. A three-year, $600,000 contract followed, and Simpson became America's most popular athlete spokesman — by 1992 Hertz paid him $550,000 a year, half his income. In the public's mind, O.J. was Hertz.

The warning sign came in January 1989, when Simpson was charged with assaulting his wife. He telephoned Olson to say the charges were overblown — a fight after too much to drink at a New Year's Eve party — and his wife repeated the same story. Hertz chose to stick with him: 'We regard it as a private matter,' a spokesman said. A year later the company's surveys found no lingering negative feeling among customers, and the ads kept running. There was no exit plan and no test of the contract's escape routes — the relationship simply rolled on, negotiated personally by Olson at every renewal.

On 12 June 1994 Simpson's ex-wife and her friend were killed, and Simpson was charged with the murders. He had been on his way to a Hertz golf outing in Chicago the night they died; police called him back. Hertz's first response was silence: executives were in Europe and junior staff said no comment. Within days the company issued a statement on plain white paper, without a corporate logo: 'shocked and saddened by this development... Obviously, Hertz has no plans to utilize Mr. Simpson in advertising.' The contract technically ran to 1997, but Hertz said it would likely be terminated.

The cost was not a payout but the evaporation of a 19-year brand franchise. Hertz's best-known advertising became a national joke overnight — 'Go, O.J., Go!' was now a punchline. Customers wrote in both directions: some chided Hertz for not acting in 1989, others accused it of abandoning a loyal spokesman. Analysts warned the company could not win either way — found guilty and Hertz was linked to murder; acquitted and it had abandoned a man who had served it for two decades. The case became the cautionary tale that ended the single-face era its own campaign had created.