Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Gold Medals=Successful Advertising...

For athletes like Lindsey Vonn, Apolo Ohno, and Shaun White winning gold medals in Vancouver ensures them future endorsements. Their success, alongwith good looks and compelling stories make them appeal to a variety of companies that have huge marketing budgets. However, in the past, companies have realized that endorsing individual athletes can be risky. For example, Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps. Their actions paint a negative image and that is the last thing that companies want to be asscoiated with. Athletes must not only perform to keep their endorsements but they must also keep their actions in line with what their endorsers feel is appropriate. Today, athletes must perform on the field as well as off the field.




http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/sports/olympics/02medals.html
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 11, 2010 at 6:52 AM

    Shaun White actually touched on this a little after winning his gold medal in Vancouver. A reporter asked him what he felt about Tiger Woods and why he personally tries to stay away from negative publicity.
    He responded by saying he didn't choose to be a role model or decided how people will precieve his actions but he has to stand behind them because they make him marketable one way or another. It's good to hear an athlete say that amoungst all the issues.

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  2. Kyle SmithApril 13, 2010 at 8:34 PM

    I do agree that using individual athletes for endorsments is very risky because you just dont know what they may do. Also, you never know what someone may "accuse" them of either. Opinion on a player can change over night with just a rumor. It also must be hard to decide on wether or not to use an olympic athlete for endoursments because most are only relevent every for years. With as great as Phelps was, you dont hear a whole lot about him now.

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  3. Papa Murph's BlogApril 14, 2010 at 1:05 PM

    I completely agree with you. But it makes me wonder, with the risk that comes with sponsorships of individual athletes, why don't we see more sponsorships of teams. I realize that this does occur when teams get all of their jerseys and equipment from one sponsor, but, as a viewer, you wouldn't even notice that. It is much harder for a entire team to get negative publicity than it is for an individual.

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