His mettle will still make the biggest impression

Advertisers bet on Tyson Gay before Olympic mishaps

Tyson Gay looks at the scoreboard in frustration at the Olympics. (Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Sprinter Tyson Gay is an earnest, hard-working athlete whose youth and Olympic hopes made for a potent formula for advertising success. But is he still as alluring without a gold medal in the mix?

Plagued in one instance by a strained hamstring and in another by a bad baton handoff, the sprinter missed out on chances to win a medal in both the 100 meters and the 400-meter relay in the Games. Now, the question his representatives must answer is whether he will still prove attractive to a broad array of marketers beyond those looking to sell athletic products.

"He can continue to shine," said David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California Sports Business Institute. "But likely mostly so with companies or in categories most tied to track and field. When you combine his most recent performance with the high profile scandals in the sport, the result is a less compelling spokesperson."

Advertisers love the thrill of victory. How do they feel about the agony of defeat? Marketers are stampeding to align themselves with young athletes before they come into their own, but not all of their picks are going to come up winners.

"When you look at the lifespan of a professional athlete, it's growing longer because it's starting younger, and I think that's motivating sponsors or businesspeople to get involved earlier on, because if they don't, then maybe someone else is going to," said Dave Czesniuk, director of operations at Sport in Society, a Northeastern University organization that examines social problems in sports.

"The plans, I'm sure, are based on that person's perceived image of success, or their record. But in reality, when it comes down to one person, things can change quickly."

Gay had lined up a heady group of advertisers behind him, including Adidas, McDonald's, Omega, Sega, and Alltell Wireless, thanks to his representatives at Boston-based Global Athletics & Marketing, which has gained notice in track and field circles for its expertise in pairing athletes and advertisers. Each pact is different, said Mark Wetmore, Global Athletics' president; Adidas is involved with Gay until 2012, and other pacts are shorter in term.

"All of these partners were on board before he even made the Olympic team, so they knew there was an inherent risk involved," Wetmore said.

To be sure, no one believes Gay's promotional potential is spent. He has many more races ahead of him. Indeed, Wetmore said the runner can shine in any number of events in coming months, including the World Outdoor Championships, which take place in Berlin in 2009.

"His achievements probably aren't as important as the fact that he's an athlete" and can still make a good representative for particular goods, said Thomas Boyd, professor of sports marketing at California State University, Fullerton. Until Gay carries the day in a major way, however, broader opportunities, such as promoting a big car or appearing on a box of cereal, might be beyond his reach.

Gay's situation is far from unique when it comes to Olympic hopefuls. A bevy of advertisers had aligned with Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang, only to be disappointed when a foot injury forced him to pull out of the Olympics this week.

And sponsors of Olympic athletes often have to change their initial plans, which might have called for latching on to the hoopla that comes with winning a gold medal. Sports-marketing experts cite the now-classic 1992 example of Reebok spending a fortune to promote two decathletes, Dave Johnson and Dan O'Brien, in advance of the Olympics. O'Brien never made the Olympic team and Johnson won a bronze medal.

Given the pressure to hook on to athletes earlier, Boyd believes advertisers ought to select sports figures based on whether they are appropriate promoters for the product rather than their win-loss record.

"The research I've been doing lately really seems to indicate that if you were to compare the fame of a person with their fit with the product, the fit is more important," he said. Already, pundits are grumbling about the decision to have champion swimmer Mark Phelps promote Kellogg's sugary Frosted Flakes.

As for Gay, youth is on his side. "If the marketing plan itself was based solely on the performance, naturally it takes a little bit of a hit," said Northeastern's Czesniuk. "But if you have an athlete who is a quality person, who still has a long career ahead of him, and is a pretty young guy, has a pretty good reputation as being a solid citizen - all these things have to be weighed in the boardroom."

Brian Steinberg is the television editor of Advertising Age.