Sponsorship can be a fickle thing. Remember how quickly Coca-Cola dropped Wayne Rooney when he became entangled in negative publicity - or how GSK quietly brushed Ashley Young under the carpet after his woeful showing in Euros 2012.
Today it also emerged that Nivea is falling out of love with one of its global ‘faces’, Rihanna. The pop princess is, it seems, a little too raunchy for a brand that stands for “trust, family and reliability,” according to Stefan Heldenrich, the new chief executive of Nivea’s parent company Beierdorf.
Never mind Liverpool’s chosen shirt sponsor, Standard Chartered, being accused of laundering money on behalf of Iran. It’s clear firms need to be careful when throwing money at celebs and sports stars in terms of the character of their brand ambassadors. But a judgement also has to be made as to whether or not the support will be repaid by sporting performance.
GSK, for example, will no doubt have been gutted (in the parlance) by the ‘will he, won’t he’ sideshow that was triple jumper Phillips Idowu’s Olympic effort. That, we understand, forced it to pull some planned advertising featuring a man who was previously one of Team GB’s brightest stars.
GSK did at least have stellar performances by Mo Farah and Louis Smith to act as powerful testimonials of the virtues of drinking Lucozade.
But few could be more pleased with its choice of champions than P&G. It may have suffered its own setback with the withdrawal of Paula Radcliffe, but there could be few more desirable representatives in the UK right now than Jessica Ennis and Sir Chris Hoy. Its Gillette ad in today’s press captured the public mood perfectly, asking if the flying Scotsman could receive a second knighthood.
But there is a cheaper and less risky way to capitalise on our athletes’ achievements: see how they get on, then jump shamelessly on the bandwagon. Companies who have forked out millions in advance may frown on the practice, but you have to hand it to the companies who get it right.
Scrolling down a list of key Olympic sponsors, you won’t find Taylors of Harrogate. But it still managed to bask in some reflected glory with a perfectly pitched ad for Yorkshire Gold tea.
The simple message ‘Yorkshire Gold, after gold, after gold, after gold - there must be something in the water’ doesn’t refer to anything official but cleverly suggests that the success of stars from the county at the Games could be down to something as simple as a nice cuppa.
Perhaps its next step should be looking for more business in Australia. After all, Yorkshire is still having a better time of it than our Antipodean friends.
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