This was the week which saw the publication of results from a survey conducted by that creative New York-based PR firm, Alan Taylor Communications, who asked leaders of the US marketing and PR sectors to nominate the athletes who would make the best brand/company spokespeople.
The results were, in many ways, unsurprising. Tiger Woods topped the poll with Serena Williams winning the female vote.
In his commentary, Alan Taylor Associates CEO, Tony Signore, made the point that there is more to this list than success, as neither Tiger nor Serena had done much in the way of wining in the last 12 months. The conclusion one has to draw is that past success had provided the platform from which to create awareness of their personalities, and it is that combination of performance and personality that the brands buy into. No rocket science then.
What is interesting, however, is to consider the extent to which the media helps create a sports personality today compared with, say, 30 years ago.
The sheer profusion of electronic, online and print media means that the environment is entirely different. It is more intense and, most would agree, more intrusive. In many respects we come to know a lot more about our sports stars – some of which we’d probably rather not know – than we did in the 1970s, when the vast majority of them managed to enjoy a rather less intense form of celebrity which was, by and large, confined to admiration for their sporting achievements.
It’s different now of course. The media spotlight is rarely turned off. And instead of simply lending a warm glow to on-field brilliance it acts as a prison camp searchlight, relentlessly raking the dark to illuminate indiscretion and focus on fallibility.
But even in a celebrity-obsessed age the media can get it wrong. A few years ago a UK Sunday tabloid ended up going to court to overturn an injunction preventing it from publishing details of a Premiership soccer star’s adultery
But while the guy may have played Premiership football and was undoubtedly a star of his team – one of the smallest and least glamorous in the league – his celebrity didn’t travel much beyond his home town – although in one respect it had clearly ventured some way beyond his actual home. The result was more or less complete indifference among the public at large. ‘Little Known Married Footballer Shags Unknown Woman’ is simply a rubbish story but such is the fixation with sports stars that it was given space.
Given this media fixation, there’s always a good chance that the sports stars chosen as brand spokesmen are going to be somewhat vanilla flavoured. Despite the plethora of protective clauses to be found in athlete endorsement contracts, there has to be a certain nervousness, particularly among the less edgy end of the brand community.
But what about yesterday’s heroes. We may not have known so much about their off-field proclivities but the stars of yesterday remain legends, embedded in our memories in a Dorian Gray, forever 22 kind of way.
Most retired professional sports stars retain a kind of celebrity in their immediate locale but, in an age where nostalgia is big business, there has to be a case to be made for exploring their commercial potential among a wider audience.
While there are examples of sports stars that have gone on to build major profiles in the media after they’ve retired, they are the tip of the iceberg.
Now a start-up called Nobok has announced it intends to tap into the interest in sports legends by offering an online service that delivers an opportunity for fans to talk to and even meet their heroes.
It’s a fairly simple proposal that mines a rich seam of passion and has the potential to effectively extend the brand life of the stars of yesterday.
Nobok says the service will not operate on a subscription basis but will generate income by magnetising the data gleaned from users.
It seems to be a straightforward and compelling proposition and we wish them well.
The only problem is the inability to shrug off the feeling that one’s memories might best be left alone.
Each of us has very personal memories of those golden moments in sport. They’re determined not just by the event but by factors including who we watched with, where we watched and our state of sobriety.
There’s something slightly unsettling about the prospect of coming face to face with a sportsman who one remembers in their golden youth only to discover them as a paunchy 50-something with halitosis and an attitude problem.
