Have you ever seen a popular product and immediately thought of a person that is associated with it through billboards or commercials? Well, this is what marketing has evolved into. Celebrities and athletes have been recruited to sponsorships based on their public following of fans due to their talent in sports or just being successful at what they do in general. Whether it is a professional basketball player like LeBron James (Nike) or a musical icon such as Drake (Jordan), sponsorships have become to be the most popular strategy to influence customers to purchase specific products.
Due to the increasing use of mass media, these celebrities have more platforms to show off their products. For example, LeBron James is signed with Nike. He and the Nike team work together to develop shoes that he is required to wear during all his games on the court. As he is considered to be one of the best basketball players in the NBA, people see him representing the Nike brand, so naturally customers will want to buy his signature shoe. In addition, Nike can use his image in their promotional commercials and billboards. This all leads to more sales for the company.
Now, there have been instances when athletes have been stupid and were involved in scandals that ruined their public image. For example, Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong. Tiger was once sponsored by companies such as Gillette, Gatorade, and AT&T. In the wake of him being involved in a cheating scandal that occurred back in 2009, his image and playing career spiraled down into one of the most shocking turn of events in recent memory. The media plagued him forever, and he is still trying to recuperate his talent as a golfer. Lance Armstrong is a well known cyclist known for fighting testicular cancer and returning to win a record setting 7 consecutive Tour de France titles. However, he was stripped of all of them in 2012 due to evidence that he was using performance enhancing drugs. He had been denying numerous allegations leading up to 2013, when he confessed. He was sponsored by Nike, Trek, Easton Bell Sports, as well as others.
Kylie Jenner, one of the most popular social media users of today, is an avid user of Snapchat. Due to her association with the Kardashian family, she has been able to feed off the limelight to launch fashion products and cosmetics and promote them on platforms like Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram. However, recently Snapchat released an update that changed the layout of the app, making it confusing for loyal users who had been using it since it was first released back in 2011. Kylie tweeted out her displeasure to the update.
Since Kylie has such a large following on Twitter and due to the popular opinion of the layout being too confusing, stock value of Snapchat dropped 6%. An unbelievable $1.3 billion was lost in the company’s market value off of one simple tweet!
This goes to show how much mass media can create influence platforms in the marketing world. One person can emit such a positive image due to all their accomplishments, but it can all go downhill due to the sheer vulnerability through mass media.
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