Getting Olympian Ryan Lochte as your brand’s spokesperson has its obvious upsides. He’s young, attractive, and has the same kind of all-American “charm” that landed George W. Bush in the White House.
Unfortunately, a spokesperson is also technically required to speak, and words are something that Lochte has demonstrated his inability with time and time again on national television. So, Speedo and LBi subsidiary Syprup decided to play into Lochte’s lack of skill with the English language in the above spot, “The Art of Jeah.” To an insanely gullible person, Lochte is actually quite poignant if you interpret his butchering of “yeah” to mean statements about the Dow Jones Industrial Average, chess, or his plans on how Obama should approach the Syrian conflict should he wish to be re-elected come October.
The spot also advertises Speedo’s “Pace Club,” a microsite where interested parties can follow their favorite swimmers in blog posts and tweets. Looks like it’s been fairly dormant since February, but what better time to market a failure than when the subject is once again newsworthy? Oh, and for the record, two hours ago Lochte tweeted at swimsuit model Niki Ghazian “golden balls hahaha.” You’ve made your country proud, Ryan.