Text / Oe
Editor / Chen Diandian
The first quarter of 2024 has passed, and the latest quarterly endorsement report card of domestic sports athletes has also been settled.
It coincides with the Paris Olympic year, and it is also a key period for athletes' commercial endorsements, and it is also a high-frequency period for athletes' market attention and commercial value changes. By observing the trend of the previous quarter, we can capture the changes and value depressions of the athlete commercial endorsement market in time.
Looking back on the endorsements in the first quarter, the diving team, table tennis team, badminton team, and swimming team are still the most popular investment targets in the market. In particular, gold medal athletes with good image, stable performance and high comprehensive score have become the sweethearts of major brands. In addition to the traditional strengths, some athletes who have performed well in professional events and vertical fields and have a degree of topicality have also entered the mainstream vision, stirring up the endorsement market.
It should be noted that the summary information through market research shows that at the moment when public opinion is changing rapidly, big brands still tend to be cautious in selecting athletes, mainly athletes with excellent competitive performance and good personal reputation. Some new brands or products that urgently need to expand the market have set their sights on athletes who have a lot of talk and still have room for improvement.
On the whole, athletes in traditional gold medal teams are still favored by big brands, and the proportion of endorsements by male athletes is higher than that of female athletes. The fit between the athlete and the brand concept, the athlete's performance and topicality, and the athlete's word-of-mouth public opinion are all the focus of the brand's assessment, rather than blindly focusing on competitive results.
It is worth mentioning that with the approach of the Paris Olympic Games, a number of emerging sports such as breakdancing, BMX, and rock climbing will enter more people's vision through the stage of the Olympic Games.
The advantageous projects have achieved remarkable results, and the commercial endorsement of the gold medal division is stable
After sorting out the commercial endorsements of athletes in the first quarter of 2024, it is necessary to realize that the athletes of the gold medal team in the current sports marketing market are still collectively welcomed by brands: this is not only reflected in the number of endorsements, but also the magnitude of cooperative brands is relatively stable. According to statistics, the athletes of the diving team, table tennis team, badminton team, and swimming team have all gained.
Users who follow the diving program should be able to spot the former Olympic champion and current coach of the national diving team, Chen Ruolin, who has reached a cooperation with Haidilao and become its first product recommendation officer. At the same time, head divers, including Quan Hongchan, have appeared in the Blue Moon advertising endorsement. In the long-term cooperation with the diving team, Blue Moon not only enhanced the national recognition of the brand, but also paid attention to the special needs of sportswear washing and care at the product level, so it developed sports laundry detergent to adapt to the current trend of market segmentation.
Not long ago, the Chinese men's badminton team regained the Thomas Cup in Chengdu after 6 years, and the women's team also successfully won the Uber Cup, which represents the world's highest level of badminton women's team. Entering 2024, the Chinese badminton team has begun to show good competitive condition and spirit in various competitions, becoming the biggest winner of badminton events, and the team's outstanding performance is also favored by the brand. On March 11, Yili officially announced that it had become the official partner of the Chinese badminton team.
At the same time as the badminton team signed a new endorsement, the table tennis team also made some gains in the market. At the beginning of the year, Fan Zhendong, Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin, who performed well in the team competition of the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan, became the brand spokesperson of Yili.
It can be seen that the traffic status of top athletes in traditional domestic advantageous sports is still stable, and they continue to have commercial value with stable results and fan stickiness. The commercial value of these powerful Mesozoic generations, due to the comprehensive strength attached to stable performance such as national degree and popularity, has established their absolute advantage in the athlete endorsement market.
In addition to advantageous events such as diving and table tennis, in the past year, swimmer "Butterfly Queen" Zhang Yufei's performance was also outstanding. She not only won the gold medal in the women's 100m butterfly at the World Swimming Championships, achieving a breakthrough of zero gold medals in the individual World Championships, but also won nine gold medals at the Chengdu Universiade and six gold medals at the Hangzhou Asian Games, becoming the star of the swimming team.
Zhang Yufei's outstanding performance on the field and her sunny and healthy image have been widely recognized by the market, and her outstanding performance at the Hangzhou Asian Games and her fairy friendship with Japanese athlete Rikako Ikee were awarded the 2023 Moving China Person of the Year. Since then, the Chinese butterfly queen has been favored by the smart kitchenware brand Senge in the first quarter and has become the brand's image spokesperson.
On the men's side, due to his performance on the field and his personal popularity, Wang Shun joined hands with the French high-end skincare brand Biotherm to become its new brand ambassador. Professional swimming equipment brand Arena has also announced Xu Jiayu as its Chinese brand ambassador to join forces in future major competitions.
For many brands that are deeply engaged in sports marketing, they choose sports athletes as endorsements, not based on the logic of improving product sales, but more about combining the positive image and sportsmanship of athletes to generate positive connections, thereby enhancing brand awareness, national character and highlighting differentiation. It can be seen that in the ecology of athletes' commercial endorsements, the first factors considered by brands and the key to influencing decision-making are always strongly related to athletes' performance.
Of course, in the age of social media communication. How to make marketing activities brilliant and out of the circle, what needs to be considered is how to make brands, products and athletes more compatible, and better meet the needs of fans and consumers through marketing communication content and topic discussions with a sense of substitution and experience, so as to achieve a win-win situation for brands and spokespersons, which is the key topic of brand sports marketing activities.
Zhou Guanyu C position, the top stream and potential stocks are divided into two endorsement markets
In the big year of the Olympic Games, the national degree and pan-popularity index of athletes are often extremely explosive. The dimensions of brand evaluation of potential contracted athletes are basically locked in four aspects: sports performance and athletic ability, historical status of the sport, quality of life and hobbies, and personal appearance and image.
In addition to outstanding competitive performance, the audience's perception and memory of athletes are based on richer labels and personalities. In the first quarter of 2024, from the perspective of individual athletes, based on comprehensive indicators such as the brands and media volume they cover, F1 driver Zhou Guanyu is firmly in the top spot. Through horizontal research, it can be seen that the brand endorsements signed by Zhou Guanyu and the quantity and quality of the fashion magazines he has appeared in are good, and the improvement of his commercial value can be seen.
Since Zhou Guanyu served as the chief control officer of ZEEKR 001 in February, he has signed a contract with ROG, a computer equipment brand owned by ASUS, and has become its spokesperson. Counting the cooperation with Dior, lululemon, Hublot, Hennessy, HSBC, Yili and other brands, Zhou Guanyu's endorsement brand spans many fields and successfully stands in the C position of Chinese male athlete endorsement. AT THE SAME TIME, THE FIRST PERSON IN FORMULA 1 CHINA HAS ALSO PERFORMED WELL IN TERMS OF MEDIA EXPOSURE, AND HE HAS APPEARED ON THE COVERS OF ELLE MEN AND GQ SPORTS ON THE EVE OF THIS YEAR'S FORMULA 1 CHINESE GRAND PRIX.
Interestingly, the athlete commercial endorsement market in the first quarter is quite similar to the trend of domestic entertainment "men". The fan base of high-value athletes is more likely to bring sales conversion to the products they endorse. In this opportunity, beauty and fashion brands are showing positive results, eager to attract the attention of their fan base and increase the likelihood of product sales by signing athletes.
Zhang Zhizhen, China's first men's tennis player to enter the ATP 50, became a new friend of Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot in the first quarter. At the same time, L'Oréal, another well-known skincare brand, chose to cooperate with Yi Jianlian, the former first brother of the Chinese men's basketball team, and invited him to serve as a men's brand ambassador.
Unlike several well-known professional athletes, Chinese middle-distance runner Jia Oringa is not a familiar name. But for the mass runners, Jia Orirenga is a running legend in the minds of many people. He has achieved great results in cross-country and road running, and is now one of the top marathons in the country. Zhongqiao Sports signed Jia Orenga as the global spokesperson of the brand, which aroused the warm attention and expectations of fans and sports fans.
In addition, Puma signed CBA players Wang Lanyan, Zou Yang and Jiang Weize to value the market potential of newcomers in Chinese basketball.
In terms of female athletes, the pure electric car Galloping Pony brand released Wu Yanni's attitude poster and dopamine video on March 8 this year, and posted a number of endorsement posters.
Athletics women's heptathlon athlete and Asian Games champion Nina Zheng has become a close friend of the Bose brand, successfully linking sports and music across borders. It is understood that this is not the first time that Zheng Ninali has cooperated with Bose, and the two sides have joined hands again, which fully demonstrates Bose's high recognition of Zheng Ninali's influence and personal image.
On the whole, in the first quarter of 2024, the individual commercial endorsement market for athletes will include daily chemical and personal care, beauty, automobiles, home appliances, etc., among which FMCG and luxury brands are the main marketing forces. At the athlete level, newcomers gain brand favor through different labels and traits, and various collaborations are reached. Brands that have been investing in the field of sports marketing for a long time are mainly selected to sign contracts with well-known top athletes.
Wang Yibo stands on the platform of the Shanghai Olympic Championships, can the new project of the Paris Olympics detonate new traffic?
In this Olympic Games, the four emerging sports of BMX, skateboarding, break dancing and rock climbing will attract the attention of a large number of young spectators. These four events represent the trend of the development of the Olympic Games towards younger, trendier and more life-oriented. It can be seen that the top athletes of these emerging sports will receive more attention and favor from the market in the future.
The Olympic qualifying tournaments for these sports are about to start in Shanghai. A number of Olympic and world champions can be seen in the newly announced list of athletes: Logan Martin of Australia, the gold medallist of the men's BMX freestyle event at the Tokyo Olympics, Charlotte Worthington of Great Britain, the women's champion of the BMX freestyle park at the Tokyo Olympics, and the men's bouldering champion of the 2023 NEOM IFSC Masters, Mehdi Schalke of France, will all be in action.
In order to let more Chinese audiences know about these sports, the IOC officially produced a promotional video for the event, and invited Wang Yibo, a well-known artist who is a veteran hip-hop enthusiast himself, to serve as the promotion ambassador.
Unlike other traditional sports, although the public does not know much about the athletes in these emerging sports, in fact, many Chinese athletes have already made their mark in international competitions.
Since 2021, the Chinese National Breaking Training Team has been going to Europe to train and compete in competitions to improve their strength. At present, Liu Qingyi, who won the women's break dancing championship at the Hangzhou Asian Games, has already obtained a ticket to the Paris Olympics, and Shang Xiaoyu, Zeng Yingying, Zheng Ziyan and other players will all compete for a place in the next Olympic qualifying tournament.
In the freestyle BMX event, the Chinese women's BMX freestyle team has shown good strength, with drivers Sun Jiaqi and Zhou Huimin winning the championship and runner-up of the 2022 BMX Freestyle World Cup Gold Coast Station (Australia) respectively, achieving a breakthrough of zero medals in the Chinese BMX Freestyle World Cup.
In rock climbing, the Chinese team has won three Olympic quotas. In the Paris Olympic Qualification Series, the Chinese team will also challenge for places in the men's speed, women's speed and all-around events. The Chinese rock climbing team not only sent three players who have already qualified for the Paris Olympics, Long Jinbao, Deng Lijuan and Zhang Yuetong, but also famous players Wu Peng, Wang Xinshang, Niu Di, Zhang Shaoqin and Luo Zhilu will also appear on the field.
In skateboarding, Chinese female skaters are already quite competitive in street-style events. Zeng Wenhui has maintained a high level of competition in the two Olympic cycles, and Cui Chenxi, who is only 13 years old, also has an upward momentum, which is worth paying attention to.
The Olympic Games have always been a stage for global brands to compete, and companies that know the value of the Olympics do not hesitate to spend a lot of money to sponsor athletes and national teams for marketing activities. Especially at this year's Paris Olympics, many new sports have been added, and related events and athletes have been pre-empted by the marketing teams of many brands, who are eager to make their mark on breaking dance, rock climbing, skateboarding and BMX.
At present, adidas has joined hands with Asian Games women's break champion Liu Qingyi, BMX world champion Kieran Reilly, and the Brazilian Skateboarding Federation to enter the emerging Olympic sports. At the same time, the domestic brand Xtep also signed a contract with the Chinese national breaking team early, gradually expanding the communication channels with young consumers. And brands like BYD, FILA FUSION and so on. threw an olive branch of cooperation to the Chinese skateboarding team.
With the further deepening of the sports lifestyle, brands will formulate corresponding marketing strategies to select athletes for more emerging events and communities, which shows that the change of sports fashion trends is also an important external driving force for the change of athletes' commercial endorsements.
If brands want to harvest traffic in the short term, they need to preempt high-quality athletes for hot events. If you want to choose a long-term cooperation with athletes, you need to fully consider the short-term hot spots and continuous popularity of their sports in the market, as well as the continuity of the event, so as to ensure that there are events and activities that can be spread in each cycle.
Behind the fierce competition in the athlete endorsement market in the first quarter of 2024, it can be seen that brands will be relatively conservative in choosing excellent athletes with stable reputation as partners. Of course, the good news is that with the change of communication methods and the improvement of fan stickiness in vertical sports, the value of the new generation of athletes is gradually being recognized by brands. In the field of sports marketing, it will become the norm to compete on the same stage.
There is not much time left until the Paris Olympics. It remains to be seen who will be the new winner and who will occupy the high ground of the endorsement market.