THE EFFECT that the overall wholesomeness of the athlete has on his/her sports brand value creation often goes under the radar. It is however a vital cog in the determination of a broad based and enduring Brand, so to speak.
This comes to the fore in the recent survey which placed V Anand and Sachin Tendulkar at the top of the most trusted sports personalities in India. While unfortunately Chess doesn’t have a broad fan following and is highly unlikely to compete with any other emerging sport in terms of fan following and value creation, it is no coincidence that the greatest cricketer arguably of all time, is also one of sports’ finest brand ambassadors. It is this blend of wholesomeness and performance that makes a great athlete transcend to demi-god status that is endearing to the masses, and also grows the brand exponentially long after his or her competing days are over.
As an athlete approaches the later stages in his or her career, the marketing and brand-building focus also shifts, and the products that he or she endorses, or the demographic that is targeted metamorphoses and matures. Sachin is no exception, and increasingly many of the products and services that he endorses, as well as the activities that he engages in have a more broad-based tilt, veering towards facets that go beyond just his on-field performances. In short, they bank the Trust factor, building on a reputation and legend that has taken more than two decades to build, and which is likely to have a shelf life that could be quantified in centuries rather than decades.
It is extremely important for athletes who have built off-field reputations as trustworthy and ethical individuals, to visibly engage in activities, or to endorse brands that have the philanthropic/charitable/feel good factor attached to them, because once their playing days are over, they are once more citizens in the true sense of the word, and community building activities, and associations with things of a wholesome nature have a way of prolonging the shelf life of the most decorated athletes.
With athletes who are anyways engaged in activities of such a nature, this is a seamless transition, and one sees it with athletes such as Roger Federer, Andre Agassi, John Elway, and Derek Jeter to name a few. Without the Trust factor, it’s very difficult to maintain one’s brand once the athlete’s ability to perform quantifiable reality-defying feats lapses. It is this Trust factor that allows an athlete’s brand to thrive and grow beyond the active competition window.
This has been the case with outstanding athletes across sports, and coincidentally one of the biggest brand-related stories in the US at present revolves around the request made to the NBA by LeBron James asking to change his jersey number from No. 23 to the number he uses in the Olympics, No. 6. The reason he has given for this – that he wants to honor Michael Jordon who immortalized the No. 23 during his playing days in the NBA, has been met with skepticism. Critics claim that the real reason why he wants to change his jersey number is because the association with Jordan and No. 23 has hampered James’ jersey sales, pegging him back to the perennial number two position behind Kobe Bryant. Incidentally, Bryant himself changed his jersey number some time back to boost the sales of his jerseys, and expand his global brand. This incident is a case in point of an enduring brand where Jordan, despite the sharp fall-off in his performance levels towards the end of his career, still managed to maintain his brand, and remain an endearing and popular figure, to the extent that the league’s biggest superstar needs to change his jersey number to shake off the effect that Jordan’s brand has on his own.
While a carefully molded and sculpted brand built on the Trust factor takes years to build, it unfortunately is also extremely fragile, as Tiger Woods would attest to. As his brand crashes around him like a house of cards, it appears that much of the chagrin that he has caused revolves around the ‘false image’ that he had created, ably aided by the media. One could make a plausible argument that if his escapades were not buried in the sand as his squeaky clean brand was being manufactured, then he could still have been an extremely marketable brand, although he would have catered to a different demographic. For every Tendulkar or Federer, sport also lauds the colloquial ‘Bad Boys’ and perhaps a more adventurous Tiger would have spurred a legacy of his own as well. That however, is speculative at best. The fact remains that athletes like Tiger become legends on the goodwill that they generate, and the associated feel-good factor that one associates them with. Tiger will never be able to bank that Trust factor again, and his current endorsers are glaringly those that leverage his on-field performance, and gloss over his once impregnable persona.
As athletes approach the ‘legacy’ part of their careers, they increasingly focus on the societal and community-building initiatives to maximize on the Trust factor that they have carefully developed. It is the once in a generation athletes such as Federer, Jordan and Tendulkar who are able to create global brands with no expiry date due as much to their on-field performances as to their ability to warm the hearts of their adoring fans. That is what separates the grain from the chaff, and makes Titans out of mere warriors. It is what makes a legacy, and what ensures that Tendulkar will not be discussed in terms of mere statistics, but in terms his overall Brand. The Halo effect.
The author is a Sports Attorney with J. Sagar Associates.
(The views expressed here are those of the Author and SportzPower need not necessarily subscribe to them).
