Brand-athlete fit and endorsement marketing objectives in company sponsorships

Endorsements

Athletic apparel brands typically seek to secure athlete endorsements in order to enhance the value of their brand. As such, there are a few different criteria that they might apply when looking for athletes to act as their endorsers. Most athletic companies prefer to work with winning athletes, those who are among the world's best at what they do. At the core of this need is that the best athletes are often the ones who have the most fans. They play on the most popular teams, and therefore the apparel brand becomes associated with the most popular performers in a given sport. Additionally, when an athlete wins, that championship pedigree rubs off on the company whose apparel that athlete endorses.

A good example of this is with Nike, a company that often wishes to associate itself with championship athletes. When you look at athletes like Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods or Cristiano Ronaldo, Nike has associated itself with the top performers in their respective sports (though Tiger has slipped a little of late). These performers have a lot of fans, and they also have a high level of crossover appeal, meaning that they appeal to fairly broad demographic bases. It is worth noting that none of these three is a perfect character without blemish -- all have integrity issues from legal and marital troubles to poor sportsmanship on the pitch. But all are winners, and that is the quality that Nike seeks most of all with which to associate itself. Nike in turn markets itself in that context -- the aspirational quality that it sells more than any other is winning.

Nike has had challenges with this approach, especially through the legal troubles that Bryant and Woods had. But even Nike could not maintain its endorsement deal with Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic champion accused of murdering his girlfriend (Reuters, 2013). While he was certainly the best in his class, being the first Paralympic athlete to compete in the regular Olympics, his character flaws were a bit much for even Nike, though the company's decision to end his endorsement deal was helped by the likelihood that he will never again compete.

While Nike pursues primarily champions, and usually in the world's most popular sports -- or at least the largest apparel markets -- other companies seek to cultivate a certain exclusivity status through the athletes that they endorse. Billabong is a major merchandiser of athletic lifestyle apparel, but retains its endorsement focus on surfers. For example, it signed up Australian surfer Taj Burrows, thus reinforcing the brand as having credibility in the surfing community and reminding everyone that it is an Australian lifestyle brand (Mickan, 2011). This also reinforces the exclusivity message for the company, that it is a niche brand and appeals to specific types of lifestyle. The company is not, the endorsement signals, trying to be a brand for everyone but it wants to dominate its niche.