Ultimo announced this week (shocked faces please) that Peaches Geldof has been sacked as the face of its ‘Miss Ultimo’ range.  Aimed at the younger part of its target audience, the brand decided to terminate her contract following ‘stories that have surfaced over the weekend’.  Reading between the lines (and by lines, I am not referring to the amount of class A she was snorting), what the brand manager actually wanted to say is that they terminated her contract following her alleged heroin, sex and photography session with an American who she had only met once (although lived with him for 3 days…) – natch.

As revelations started to pour in like a couple of strangers at 4am looking for needles in a pharmacy (ahem), Ultimo had no real choice but to terminate its relationship with Peaches.  But why?  Surely when the brand manager had the ingenious brainwave to approach Miss Geldof (after apparently seeing topless pictures of her in the News Of The World – nice), they should have been expecting this?  If not, which I cannot believe is true, this is a very harsh lesson in celebrity endorsement.  If they were prepared for something like this, then exactly how damaging has this been to the brand in the eyes of their target audience?  Mums won’t like it of course but who wants to sell young underwear to Mum’s?  I may be getting cynical in my young age but this kind of activity from a celebrity is the perfect excuse to generate additional coverage for the brand as well as terminating a contract without additional payment.

I give it a month to two months before Diana Vickers/Saturday/Sugababe gets her kit off.  And I give it a week before Peaches pours her heart out somewhere and checks into rehab… next