Stephen Ilagan's Blog

In light to today’s class discussion on Branding, I cam across an interesting article that coincidentally, relates to my previous post about athlete endorsements. Ahead of next month’s Women’s Hockey World Championship in Ottawa, Hockey Canada unveiled new jerseys that feature the yellow and gold colour scheme of cancer charity Livestrong in an effort to raise awareness for cancer research. The jerseys are part of a greater “Fight With Us” campaign run by Livestrong and sponsors Nike and Sport Chek. The only problem? The Livestrong Foundation was started by none other than Lance Armstrong, the disgraced cyclist who admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs throughout his career last January.

While Livestrong undoubtedly  remains true to their cause (Armstrong has since stepped down as head of the Foundation), and Hockey Canada’s support of cancer research has to be applauded, the association to Armstrong and what he now symbolizes to North Americans – a cheater and a liar – is impossible to put aside. As Howard Bloom puts it, “Livestrong and Lance Armstrong are married at the hip”.

Is this a mistake? To me, the message that the jersey sends out is a conflicting one. While it supports an incredibly positive cause, that cause has unfortunately been victimized by a man who has lost the respect of a nation and is now dealing with a bevy of lawsuits in light of him being stripped of all his Tour de France titles. Surely, there must have been other cancer charities – The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, for instance (teams have worn pink equipment before). Despite this, however, I believe that Hockey Canada’s decision is a sound one. Why? Simply for the fact that the controversy has light up news channels. People are talking about it. Especially for the women’s game, which doesn’t get as much attention as the men’s game, getting a lot of people to be aware of the campaign is better than having a few people support it.

pink skates… a better option?

The Oscar Pistorius case  that occurred last month doesn’t just have Reeva Steenkamp’s family in mourning. This is Nike’s third major case of athlete endorsement gone wrong ever since the Tiger Woods sex scandal in 2009. Woods, Lance Armstrong (for doping), and now Oscar Pistorius – the “bladerunner” paralympian who made headlines last year after he competed in the London Olympics – have all gotten in trouble with the law and have turned Nike’s multimillion dollar investment sour (11% of their $8.4 billion advertising budget was spent on endorsements).

From a marketing standpoint, the decision whether to keep these athletes on Nike’s endorsement payroll is an incredibly tough decision. They cut ties with Armstrong and Pistorius almost immediately. However, they decided to keep Woods on their payroll and have since re-branded him. They released the controversial commercial below, re-positioning Tiger as someone who is human and makes mistakes – a stark contrast to the God-like status Nike bestowed on him before.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTRvlrP2NU]

Since then Nike has slowly moved back to focusing on Tiger as a golfing figure, recently airing a commercial with another Nike signing: Rory MacIlroy:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NCDYjHtEcU&list=PL82EB32A8DE8F2E55&index=2]

In the end, I look at their decisions on what to do with athletes who have gained negative pr as one based on value. Armstrong and Pistorius are icons, no doubt. However, Armstrong is retired and was more of a spokesperson who’s image was based on the integrity he’d built up in his career. By admitting to using performance-enhancing drugs, he effectively eliminated that integrity – Nike’s asset in the partnership. Pistorius, meanwhile, proved to be expendable. An unfortunate timing with his murder trial – Nike had drafted up an ad with Pistorius before the events with the words “I am the bullet in the chamber” – coupled with that fact that he isn’t as on high a level as some of Nike’s other athletes, meant that the future value just wasn’t there. Woods meanwhile, hasn’t lost what made him so marketable in the first place – his golf talent. That, coupled with the fact that he is one of the most recognizable people in the world, meant that there was still marketing value to be had from keeping Woods with Nike.

For more on the Nike endorsement story, check out this article by Gabrielle Douglas (Associated Press)