Brands have been marketing their products and services with professional athletes for years. Having an athlete endorse a product adds credibility, exposure, and shows alignment with the brand’s corporate beliefs and values.
Typically, brands would find an athlete spokesperson or brand ambassador and have her or him wear its logo, use its products, and talk about the brand in real life during appearances. As sports viewership and popularity grows within our society, the typical athlete endorsement model continues to thrive. However, as the need for digital sports endorsements increases, professional athletes are no longer limited by the constraints of the traditional endorsement environment.
Implied Endorsements:
When a brand traditionally endorses an athlete to sponsor its product or service, it sets certain stipulations. These usually include requiring athletes to wear the brand’s logo during X event, asking athletes to show up to these functions, and requesting that those same athletes not use a competitor’s product.
Today, brands are now encouraging and even requiring additional digital and social media activity in those same endorsement deals. Athletes are required to tweet, retweet, or even host twitter parties on behalf of the brand. The new digital requirements are increasingly popular because of the online community surrounding professional athletes.
When an athlete posts on social media, it is implied that he or she is endorsing the product by mentioning it, or explicitly endorsing it by stating that s/he loves to use the product. In the traditional model, these distinctions would be grouped together with explicit traditional endorsements, but with digital, they can’t and shouldn’t be bundled.
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As social media continues to grow in popularity and digital marketing kicks up speed, the traditional endorsement model is becoming outdated. Social media provides a glimpse into athletes’ lives in a way that had previously been restricted and inaccessible to the general public. This window into the “real” athlete gives followers a more approachable view of the athlete. Because of this new dimension, family, friends, and fans are exposed to real life situations and environments rather than production sets.
Fans know that athletes (in real life) aren’t limited to one cereal brand in their home; they’re not restricted to one cleaning product, and they don’t drink the same beverage everyday. There is an abundant opportunity to have a brand’s product endorsed without the need of exclusivity anymore.
Exclusivity:
Big brands and professional athletes responded to digital endorsements by including them within traditional endorsements. Within big time endorsements there will almost always be a social media/digital requirement. However, as the need and opportunity for digital advertising grows, it must be dissected and separated from a traditional endorsement.
Although the easiest way for a professional athlete to get a message across is through her/his social media accounts, a post or short series of posts is not the most powerful way for her to show commitment to a brand. He or she shows commitment by wearing their logo in real life, wearing their products on the winners stand, or thanking them in real life while systematically sharing digitally about the brand.
Seldom will you see a product from a solely digital endorsement being worn by a champion. That’s the differentiator. Traditional endorsements require exclusivity for good purpose. A brand wouldn’t want to see their brand ambassador, an Olympic medalist wear competitors shoes because they sponsored that athlete and paid for exclusivity. That’s real life endorsement. That’s what the top 1% of professional athletes get offered and have expectations because of it.
Digital endorsements are different. Digital endorsements act as product placement within a social media feed which allows amplification of a brand’s product or service on the human side of sports. The real side that shows the daily choices and lifestyle that humanizes professional athletes to us. So, while there will always be a need for traditional athletic endorsement deals, it’s important to realize that a new era of digital, social endorsements, is gaining strength.
Adam Juratovac is Team Captain of Team On 3, a branding expert, attorney, and former professional football player.