In some of the previous posts, here at Bizandbuzz, and in a late comment at CK's blog, I was asking: what about is you are a sport sponsor? Still feeling safe in putting money in major sport events?
Just to recap what happened in the last months:
- the Tour de France was hit by several case of doping and some cyclists were kicked out the race, anyway too late: the two German major TV stations drop the the race from their programming.
- a NBA referee admitted he was betting on his own matches and said several other referees and athletes can be involved
- a McLaren manager supposedly bought secret papers from a Ferrari engineer about the latest F1 cars
- an acclaimed quarterback, Michael Vick, pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge of conspiracy stemming from a dog-fighting kennel
Indeed several others events happened to tarnish the image of the sport world.
Today the New York Times has an interesting comment about the adv campaign launched by NFL to mend its bruise image.
It's a warning sign that supporters and, maybe, sponsors do feel that sport is no longer such a safe world where to bring your children or put your money.
I suppose that we will see more adv and pr activities like this one, but we need something more if we want to refresh a rather damaged image.
Read more: Mending a bruised image
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1 comment:
Gianandrea: I looked very closely at sports sponsorship when I was last working for a "big corporate client" -- I wanted James Blake, the tennis player. It would have been a fun collaboration, too, because he was a genuinely nice person with a great story. It would have been even better to stick with him throughout his injury -- he broke his neck, you know -- and has since made not only a comeback but has regained a lot of his former ranking.
Connecting a brand to a single sports entity seems trickier every day. If I was looking to connect with tennis, I'd get four or five up and coming, interesting people who embody my brand. If one turns out to be a dog-fighter, the others are still viable and we snip off the bad boy.
Connecting to a single entity -- an NFL team, a racing team, a player -- is rolling the dice. Just my opinion, of course.
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