Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Olympian Ryan Lochte, who was dropped this week by major sponsors including Speedo and Ralph Lauren, has found a brand willing to take him on. Pine Bros. Softish Throat Drops signed an endorsement deal today with Lochte, who will appear in commercial and print ads for the brand.

The swimmer thanked the company in a tweet today.

Lochte embellished the story of what he claimed was a robbery at gunpoint with fellow swimmers at a gas station in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics earlier this month, lying about it to NBC's Billy Bush and Matt Lauer (and inspiring some shade from the likes of Al Roker, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, who all called him out for his behavior). Lochte apologized to Lauer in an interview that aired on the Today Show on Monday, saying that he "over-exaggerated" the events of that night.

Lochte's ads for Pine Bros. will feature the tagline, "Pine Brothers Softish Throat Drops: Forgiving On Your Throat," just as the company—and Lochte, himself —is asking the public to forgive him. ...

When the 2016 Olympics kick off on Friday, many advertisers will be crossing their fingers that their Olympics sponsorship will pay off. Their hopes will be misplaced if they haven’t executed on their sponsorship with the right advertising. Without spots that are relevant and compelling to their target customers, Olympics advertisers are wasting their sponsorship dollars.

Companies can sign up for different levels of sponsorship, ranging from Worldwide Olympic Partner to Official Supplier. Each comes with different terms dictating how Olympics-related logos, names, images, etc. can be used in advertising, on uniforms, in apps, and now even in Tweets. The Olympic Partners (TOP) program, the highest level of Olympic sponsorship, can cost over $200 million these days. Spending that kind of money, advertisers are right to expect a return. But results show that hefty sponsorship dollars don’t automatically translate to a successful campaign.

A comparison of Adidas’s and Nike’s campaigns for the 2012 London Olympics illustrates this point. Adidas spent $127 million to $156 million to be the “Official Sportswear Partner of the London 2012 Olympic Games and the London 2012 Paralympic Games.” Nike paid considerably less for a “tier-three” sponsorship which allowed it to outfit most Brazilian national teams for the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games. Yet, in a move that some label as ambush marketing, Nike shot commercials in places around the world named London and timed the campaign launch to coincide with the Games opening ceremony....

Two athletes have dominated the top of Forbes’ annual look at the highest-earners in sports over the past decade and a half: Golfer Tiger Woods landed the No. 1 spot 12 times, while boxer Floyd Mayweather ranked first three of the past four years.

But with Mayweather hanging up his gloves and Woods hampered by injuries, there is an opening at the top. Filling the gap is the biggest star in the biggest sport on the planet. This year, soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete, with earnings of $88 million over the past 12 months from salary, bonuses and endorsements. Ronaldo is only the second team athlete after Michael Jordan to rank as the top-paid since Forbes began tracking athlete earnings in 1990.

It is a good time to be a world-class athlete in a popular team sport. TV money is fueling massive increases in player salaries across baseball, basketball, football and soccer. The cutoff for the top 100 athletes is $20.8 million, up $2 million over last year....

Adidas, Auto Trader, Gatorade, and Under Armour, among others, are unofficial sponsors of the 2016 Rio Olympics. All have found ways to capitalize on ads connected to this summer's games, but some confusion has led to a bit of controversy. More than one-third of survey participants in a global study by Toluna incorrectly identified Adidas as a sponsor of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

"Brands that sponsor big name athletes like Michael Phelps may be able to gain more exposure for less cost than by becoming an official Olympics sponsor," said Mark Simon, managing director of North America at Toluna. "Ultimately, the IOC will need to consider what brings them more value--allowing non-sponsors to generate broader exposure for the games through their athlete partnerships, or maintaining control over the athletes’ marketing influence by restricting use of the Olympics brand."...

Sponsorship spending on the National Basketball Association and its 30 teams totaled nearly $800 million in the 2015-2016 season -- up 8% from the previous year, according to IEG research, part of WPP’s ESP Properties.

The increase is well above IEG’s projected 4.5% increase in overall 2016 North American sponsorship spending and projected 5% gain in sports spending, the firm noted.

“Global expansion, rich content and social media dominance continue to drive corporate interest in the NBA,” stated William Chipps, IEG Sponsorship Report senior editor.

State Farm edged past Anheuser-Busch to become the most active sponsor of the NBA. Eighty-three percent of NBA properties report a partnership with the insurance company, up from 74 percent in the 2014-2015 season....