Tag Archives: celebrity endorsements

by | Tuesday, April 23, 2024 · 7:42 am

Tiger Woods Launches a New Brand – Sun Day Red

Even if you know very little about golf, you can probably recognize professional golfer Tiger Woods wearing his signature red Nike swoosh shirt …. Oops… I forgot, no more Nike shirts for Tiger, he ended that relationship a few months ago after 27 years of sponsorship.

Now, Woods is launching his new brand with TaylorMade Golf. But he still favors the red polo shirt for Sunday rounds. He’s even named his new brand “Sun Day Red” albeit with a tiger embroidered on the shirt instead of a swoosh. The tiger logo is composed of 15 stripes which is the number of championships won by Tiger Woods.

Sun Day Red will be marketed as a premium lifestyle brand for athletes, fans, and non-athletes alike, including apparel, hoodies, shoes, and cashmere sweaters. In essence, the company will be combining golf with fashion and leisure for lifestyle wear. Woods isn’t the only athlete to launch such a lifestyle brand; Roger Federer, Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, and Venus and Serena Williams have also entered the marketplace with their own lifestyle/sports brands.

Products will be available online beginning in May, to be followed by international expansion. While pricey, the items are not extreme – polo shirts from $114 – $175, and cashmere sweaters $250 – $350. While TaylorMade does not yet have golf footwear, it’s reportedly under development.

Shall we get a tee time next Sunday?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss how professional athletes have started their own brands.
  2. Show website: https://www.sundayred.com/
  3. Discuss how to build and use a SWOT analysis grid: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (internal and external factors).
  4. Divide students into teams. Have each team select a professional athlete who also has a brand associated with them. (Include Tiger Woods as one of the athletic brands.)
  5. For each athlete, including Tiger Woods, direct the team to build a SWOT analysis grid.
    1. Strengths: what is the brand good at?
    1. Weaknesses: what needs work?
    1. Opportunities: what is going on in the marketplace?
    1. Threats: what should the brand be wary of?
  6. Based on the analysis, what are the issues and risks that might occur for each brand?
  7. Debrief by building SWOT analysis grid on the white board.

Source: Ferguson, D. (13 February 2024). Tiger Woods unveils Sun Day Red, a new apparel brand with TaylorMade. Associated Press; Hirsch, L. & Friedman, V. (12 February 2024). Tiger Woods introduces his new brand: Sun Day Red. New York Times.

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by | Friday, December 30, 2022 · 7:29 am

When Celebrity Endorsements Go Bad: Adidas and Kanye West

Brands and marketers love to use celebrities to help endorse companies’ brands and products. Consumers think that if a product is good enough for someone famous that they respect, then it’s good enough for us as well. Using a celebrity’s image in advertising campaigns helps to promote products and raise its awareness. Marketers hope that the positive response to a celebrity will be passed on to the products or brands. 

There are advantages to this approach. Celebrity endorsements help consumers remember advertisements and makes a brand more memorable than a brand that lacks a celebrity. But it doesn’t always work; it can backfire on both the brand and the celebrity when things go astray. Since by their very nature, celebrities are often in the news, and are monitored constantly, a celebrity who takes an unpopular stand risks damaging his or her image, as well as the brand. Scandals can immediately provoke a negative consumer perception and harm the brand.

Celebrity endorsements can be a great boon to brands, linking brands tightly to the fortunes of the celebrity. We can think of many great partnerships and athletes and celebrities, but there have also been some notable failures.

A recent celebrity endorsement upset is the dissolution of the partnership between rapper and designer Kanye West and Adidas a result of antisemitic remarks made by West (Adidas manufacturers West’s Yeezy shoe line). The two have been in business together since 2016. The Yeezy partnership is estimated to account for 8% of Adidas’ annual sales.

While there are many news reports available about what happened and the timeline of the Adidas decision, the entire case is really about power of celebrity endorsements.

What is your opinion?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Discuss the effects of celebrity endorsements on brands.
  2. In teams, have students list both positive and negative celebrity endorsement deals.
  3. Show the 2016 announcement of the Adidas/Kanye partnership: https://www.adidas-group.com/en/media/news-archive/press-releases/2016/adidas-and-kanye-west-make-history-transformative-new-partnershi/
  4. A GMA video about the recent breakup can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/MFUH_A3mApg
  5. Poll students about their opinions about the situation.
  6. What should Adidas do to recover from the situation?

Source: Safdar, K. and Pacheco, I. (27 November 2022). Adidas top executives discussed risk of staff’s ‘direct exposure’ to Kanye West years ago. Wall Street Journal.

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by | Sunday, October 17, 2021 · 9:13 pm

College Athletes Can Now Make Money

It’s been a long time coming, but finally college athletes can make money! A new NCAA policy allows student athletes to earn compensation by marketing their name, image, or likeness (NIL). This is a big shift in policy from the NCAA which has long banned college athletes from receiving any compensation other than tuition.

The new NIL rule will let student athletes earn income from licensing merchandise, podcasting, offering lessons, promoting brands, opening businesses, and other deals. In addition, student athletes can use their personal brands to earn money. Many athletes have a strong social media presence that can be leveraged into marketing brands and products.

On July 1st, hundreds of student athletes announced deals for NIL.  Big winners right away were sisters Hanna and Haley Cavinder, basketball players at Fresno State who are now spokespersons for Boost Mobile. Auburn football players Bo Nix and Shaun Shivers also announced partnership deals (with Milo’s Tea and Yoke respectively).

Some athletes will be paid for appearances, others will endorse products for payments, and still others are launching merchandise lines. The deals are not necessarily tied to sports. Athletes are now able to earn income from gigs as musicians, designers, and artists also.

It’s important to note that of the hundreds of thousands of college athletes, many will not benefit from the NIL policy. Athletes still cannot be paid directly by colleges beyond their attendance costs, nor are athletes to be considered employees of the colleges. But the opportunities are now there and will certainly influence sports and business.

The times are indeed changing.

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:

  1. Poll students: What is their opinion on the new NCAA policy that allow student athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness?
  2. What are the positives and negatives for the policy?
  3. How will this policy impact marketing activities?
  4. Show video about the college athlete pay debate: https://youtu.be/q8dtMX_wXNY
  5. Show Open Sponsorship website: https://opensponsorship.com/
  6. Divide students into teams. Have each team develop ideas on how businesses could use college athletes in their marketing.

Source:  Ad Week; Assoc. Press; CNBC; NBC Sports; New York Times; other news sources

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