Sports in Advertising.
In the 21st century it is quite hard to imagine an advertising campaign without a usage of the power of authority. To put it in simple words it means that organizations concerned with using the celebrity fame and public appreciation to promote their product to mass audiences. Surely it can open new doors for refreshing the consumer’s minds in terms of brand perception and creation of strong image. The advantages of using this marketing tactic is as simple as it seems from the first glance. The companies use the psychological tools to persuade potential customers that proposed product or service has the high quality and fancy appearance. In addition to it, people who actually see the commercial with the celebrity which they admire the most, they are more likely to develop brand loyalty and the feeling of appreciation towards this specific company.
A person who uses the public recognition, enjoys the admiration and recommend to present the product in advertising called the sports endorser. As the sports became the method of mass entertainment touching all the layers of the society regardless of their social class, age, gender, income and education level, marketing campaigns using those above-mentioned sport endorsers became a quite efficient tactic to simply increase the sales level.
Even by narrowing down to the use of sports endorsers for advertising it is still not a perfect way to enhance the power of the campaign due to inflexibility of sport endorsers in various fields of products and services. The firms should determine the ways to make the usage of the given resources (in this case Sport celebrities) to earn maximal efficiency in terms of the output. There are a couple of common techniques used so far in marketing. First is that organizations separate those celebrities into their specific field and offer them the opportunities designed exclusively for them. For example, using this logic, professional football players should advertise the products that they are actually using, like different boots, balls or sportswear. The same logic applies to all other sports.
Lebron James and Nike
Lebron James is a professional basketball player who has won the annual prize for the best player (MVP) three times and became one of the most valuable players in the National Basketball Association (NBA). During his career, he has been ranked as one of the most influential athletes of Forbes and also one of the most influential people in the world according to the same Forbes. The cooperation of the sportswear production giant Nike and basketball legend Lebron has started in 2003 when the first time Lebron joined the Nike’s talent roaster. According to statistics, in the “Era of lebron” which was started in the same 2003 the Nike’s stock has returned more than 1000%. Taking into consideration such an immense contribution for the company Nike offered him a lifetime contract according to which Nike is going to pay him 1 Billion by the time he’s 64 years old
Roger Federer and Rolex
Roger Federer is one of the most iconic Tennis players of the history and also the former number one in tennis rankings. He won the most respectful men’s single’s championship tournament Wimebledon eight times since 2003 and overall 20 Grand Slam singles titles throughout his career. However, the sports achievements are not the only determining factor of Rogers success and fame. He is also considered one of the most successful athletes from financial perspective since he has considerable earnings both from tournaments and sponsorship deals which vary from Rolex to Credit Suisse and other famous brands. His contract specifically with Rolex signed in 2003 and worth $8 million every year, yet without a deadline.
Lionel Messi and Adidas
Lionel Andres Messi is an Argentinie professional football player currently playing in the position of “Forward” in the spanish football club FC Barcelona and also in Argentina national team. He is considered one of the most talented and successful players of all time who won every possible club and individual trophies. Not so far he gets the Fifa world player of the year (Ballon d’Or, or “Golden Ball”) sixth time which is an obsolete record among football players. He is also considered as the richest footballer and not so far he signed a lifetime contract with the second sportswear manufacturer “Adidas” according to which company must pay $12 million dollers annually. And this is only one sponsorship program that he is involved. Moreover, he has multiple other contracts with famous brands like “Turkish airlines”, “Lays” and etc.
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes-Benz
Lewis Hamilton is a British Formula 1 driver who races under the “Flag” of Mercedes Amg Petronas team. He is a six time F1 world champion and regarded as one of the greatest drivers in the history of this sport which is near to achieve even the record of iconic Michael Schumacher. Currently, he is the most popular in his field having around 16 million followers on social media, more than double any other F1 driver. So, he is the perfect target for marketing campaigns and effectively uses his status to increase his giant salary even more via participating in different advertising activities of different companies. His has personal endorsement deals with Mercedes-Benz, Tommy Hilfiger, Monster Energy, Puma, IWC, Sony, Bombardier, Bell Helmets and MV Agusta Motorcycles. Last year for example, Monster launched a signature Hamilton energy drink, 44, after his race number. Moreover, high-class clothing manufacturer Tommy Hilfiger plans to promote the line of underwear, sportswear and swimwear making Lewis a representative of their brand.
Got milk?
Finally, even one of the most remarkable advertising campaigns of all time named “Got Milk” which was encouraging the consumption of milk, used sports celebrities as one of the ways to promote itself in the market. The main idea of this campaign launched 25 years ago was that the “Milk does a body good” during the 1980s, built on the idea that drinking milk promotes healthy bones and brawny muscles. Of course, looking at the slogan and the main point of the campaign it is hard to imagine a more suitable field for their idea implementation, rather than sports industry.
