A Brand You Can Trust
You really know that you’ve arrived in the sports world, when you’ve succeeded at being a professional athlete. It must be great when you’ve become a really good player and you are in the middle of having a successful career. The big money you make. The large throngs of adoring fans that come to the stadiums or ballparks or arenas to see you and or your team play. People that don’t even know you seem to always be coming up to you and, of all things, they know YOU by your first name, and ask YOU for your autograph. You are a TV star. People are seeing you and your team play on TV every game.
Baseball players, football players, basketball players, hockey players, golfers… all of these types of athletes seem to come and go in their respective sports, with various degrees of career longevity. The older player on the downside of his career is always a few steps away from being replaced by someone who is younger, stronger and faster.
Some of these performers become excellent practitioners of their sports. If the masses who play the games and have moderate success are the lower rungs of “the pyramid,” then that’s a pretty good pyramid to be a part of. And then, there are the some who are even better than that. They are higher up in the hierarchy. These players have long, distinguished careers and become all pros or all stars in their sports. That’s about as good as it gets. ALMOST.
Because, at the very top of this “pyramid of successful athletes,” sits the players who have become so good and so famous at their sports that they have risen to the very top of their profession in the eyes of the sporting public, they have earned and established credibility with all of the people that matter, and they have become a BRAND NAME.
A brand name athlete is like a brand name product. A name. A face. An image. They all become a logo for the brand. The brand IS that person. That person IS that brand.
These brand names can be in the form of both their first and last names (Jerry Rice, Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Mike Trout, Aaron Rodgers, Tim Duncan, George Foreman, Drew Brees, Rory McIlroy, Brett Favre), their first name only (Le Bron, Kobe, Peyton, Tiger, Serena, Arnie, Kareem, Bubba, Clayton, Carmelo), their last name only (Ali, Aaron, Hogan, Montana, Cobb, Mays, Tyson), their initials or shortened first name (O.J., A.J. M.J., J.J., Shaq, Rafa, CPIII), or even better, their nicknames (Broadway Joe, Magic, Sid The Kid, The Golden Bear, Prime Time, The Babe, The Great One, Wilt The Stilt, Sweetness, Mr. Coffee).
Think about the faces. The Tom Brady boy next door smile. The Joe DiMaggio earnest look, sitting in his nattily attired suit, pouring a cup of coffee. The cocky, defiant look of Joe Namath with his Fu Manchu. The aw, shucks look of Brett Favre. The grandfatherly, trusted look of Arnold Palmer next to his tractor. The huge presence and likeable smile of Shaquille O’Neal. The “hey, he’s just a normal guy just like us” look of Drew Brees. The good ol’ boy look of Bubba Watson. The hard working, rugged face of J.J. Watt. The classy looks of successful achievement you get with Wayne Gretzky, Jerry Rice and Derek Jeter. All are likeable. All are brands.
The iconic images. Michael Jordan’s tongue hanging out as he soars to dunk. Babe Ruth’s home run swing and pose. Tiger Woods’ intensity as he fist pumps after sinking a long, crucial putt. Ali standing over Sonny Liston on the canvas, yelling for him to get up. A Joe Montana to Jerry Rice slant pass for a touchdown, sealing the game. Magic Johnson racing down on the fast break, fakes left, jumps in mid air and no look passes to his right for a pass to a teammate and an easy, slam dunk. Willie Mays racing back to catch a ball with his back to home plate. Bobby Orr literally flying through the air after he jabs at the puck and scores a Stanley Cup winning goal. The sporting public wants to be a part of these moments, these people, and thus, these brands.
The people in the Madison Ave. advertising world are interested in seeing these players, these faces, these images associated with their products. The athletes with brand names don’t need to seek out the money and fame that comes from endorsing products. The companies come after THEM.
Major corporations want their company to have a brand name like Tiger Woods selling their Nike golf clubs, Michael Jordan selling their Gatorade, Aaron Rodgers doing their discount double checks, Mike Trout selling their Subway sandwiches, Le Bron James selling their Big Macs, Brett Favre selling their Levi’s jeans, Kobe Bryant selling their basketball shoes, Shaquille O’Neal selling their Buicks and Peyton Manning telling people that Nationwide is on their side.
A brand name is so big at what he, or she (let’s be fair and acknowledge the women who have earned it), does, THEY are the ones who get to go on to host Saturday Night Live and the audience knows exactly who they are, and what they do or have done for a living. Their names themselves are pure magic whenever anyone sees them on television.
How does one become a brand name? (besides from a long, distinguished and successful career, of course)
One of the best recent examples of this was by Seattle Seahawk defensive back Richard Sherman. He batted away a potential 49er touchdown pass in the last seconds of a close NFL playoff game and sealed the win for Seattle, sending them to a Super Bowl. He went on the post game TV interview and started ranting and raving about how he was the best cornerback in football and he wasn’t getting his due respect. It struck a chord with the American viewing public. At first, they didn’t like the guy behind those rants. But, he was kind of a likeable guy in the midst of all that bluster. He was a Stanford graduate too (smart). What people didn’t realize at the time was that a BRAND was in the incubation stages of being hatched.
When Seattle won the Super Bowl that year and Sherman started being seen as playing all the time like the best cornerback in football, the sporting public bought into his self created hype. He backed up his bluster with great play and he gained a ton of credibility. He subsequently got a new contract paying him as if he was the best. His “prophecy” became true. He kind of became a media and a football STAR overnight. He has continued to this day to play like the best cornerback in football. You add to that his distinct dreadlock haircut look, and a very distinct, modern day BRAND was born. The TV commercials and the stardom began to follow. Now, everyone knows the BRAND known as Richard Sherman.
But a brand name athlete can also screw it all up and become “branded” as a jerk. You cannot be someone who is perceived as unlikeable or the same people who want to throw money at you for being associated with their products will then turn and want nothing to do with you. You can’t murder your wife, punch your wife, slap your wife in public, berate your wife in any shape or form, you can’t take a switch to punish your kid, or do anything bad to a dog, cat or anything that is a living, breathing form of life. You can’t get caught picking up a hooker, or get involved with anything else that the people who matter (the public, the advertisers) deem unsavory.
And the best thing about being a “brand name” is that your brand continues long after your playing career has ended. Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, Tom Watson, Shaquille O’Neal, Arnold Palmer, Deion Sanders, etc. are STILL in demand as brand names that advertisers want to pay to see associated with their products. The career might end, but the brand name goes on for as long as your brand still has credibility.
You might think that a player has hit the zenith of his or her career when they have won a Super Bowl, World Series, an NBA championship, a U.S. Open or a Stanley Cup, but I’ll tell you right now that the one who is really impressive is the one who is still in demand and seen on TV doing commercials ten or twenty years after their playing career has ended.
That, my friends, is someone who has truly become a success. They didn’t just win the games, they won AT the game. They turned themselves into a brand name. And they’ve proved they could be a brand that could be trusted.
