The impact of Marketing. A report from McCann Ericson

Coca Cola, Nike, Nissan are all names we remember. How do marketing companies do this? They have to spend billions of dollars on advertising.
When you see athletic super stars like Tiger Woods wearing a Nike logo on his cap, do you ever wonder why? Last year he was the highest paid athlete and made 72 million dollars. How and why does this happen?

Companies like to attach their logos to big stars. They project the star and create a human emotional response. Then they flash their logo. This connects the logo to the star. The feeling of the star is transmitted to the logo. Then it moves to the product. The result is that the product gets associated with the star. Hopefully it will result in new clients.

Companies, like Nike, purchase the right to associate the logo to a star. They use tennis stars like Federer or Nadal and others to do this. On occasion a sports tournament can have logos everywhere. It is sometimes cheaper to advertise this way than to buy TV spots.

Other examples of celebrity marketing include Disney figures on cereals and Nicole Kidmann on Chanel. All of these companies want their products associated with super stars.

At present the trend is towards celebrity association marketing. This phenomena is not that old. What will be next? There are trends in reality television and online. The objectives will be the same. To sell products.