Money Smart Athlete Blog

Building the Money Smart Athlete’s Image Brand

Nov 8, 2017 | The Athlete's Brand

An athlete’s brand can be built in such a way that the athlete can be transformed into a local or global signature brand, which can be leveraged to sell, endorsed and make a profit.  Athletes can build and capitalize on their brand by creating proper personal marketing strategies, with well-defined branding activities which are in line with their financial life plan. Strategic building of the athlete’s personal brand is crucial because it must be clear which values he or she brings to the marketplace in order to stand out from the rest of the athletes.

In our previous post, we have discussed the three dimensions of an athlete’s brand image (Athletic performance, Attractive appearance and Marketable lifestyle) which potentially influence consumer brand equity formation. Each of these dimensions consists of several sub-dimensions and must be thoroughly analyzed before proceeding to create the athlete’s brand strategy.

An athlete’s brand strategy is how, what, where, when and to whom he/she plans on communicating and delivering their brand message. And what the athlete communicates visually and verbally is part of his/her brand strategy. A successful branding strategy encompasses all of the following elements:

  1. Create a Niche. They can do that by defining who they are and what their mission is, besides sports or through sports. They should choose their target market, audience and fans, what their audience wants/needs from them and how they can fulfil their audience’s needs.
  2. Create a story behind the Brand. What is the athletes’ appearance/style and what is their behavior on and off court? How do the athletes participate in the community and what communication style and methods they choose to use? Where do they come from, what were their struggles so far and how they overcame these struggles? These are all elements of the athletes’ story.
  3. Create a clear Communication Strategy:
  • Online strategy:

Athletes should design, build, promote, monitor and optimize their Online Marketing Platform which consists of:

  • A Website
  • Social Media Platforms( FB, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. )
  • Web Broadcasting
  • Organizing and commercially exploiting their fan base
  • Inviting their fan base into their lives

 

  • Offline strategy:

Athletes should promote themselves Offline through appearing in charity or other events, using philanthropy or common good causes.

4. Create a crisis management strategy

Athletes should have a plan for managing events that might trigger a reputational crisis. This includes handling the athlete’s public behavior/misbehavior through various media outlets and handling online criticism and public anger/malicious comments.

 

There is no doubt that athletes can choose to cultivate their brand towards whatever direction they feel will benefit them the most. Developing their brand and working on their personal marketing strategy will help athletes stay up to date and in the spotlight for much longer than how long their athletic miracles endure and it will greatly contribute to their life long financial success.

For more information on how to strategically build your brand for maximum impact, you may contact us via e-mail at [email protected]

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