As the NBA Draft approaches Thursday, it will be interesting to see the branding winners and missteps taken, and how quickly in this digital age teams will look to immediately activate with their picks…will guys be twittering new fans from the podium, who will be the first to stream and text messages back home and will any team look to Twitter their pick before it is announced, as happened in the NFL Draf. Speed and immediacy, whether they can be monetized or not at this point, will be interesting, as well as how well athletes today understand perceived brand value vs. real brand value. Tuesday's Washington Post gave a great glimpse inside the workings of North Carolina's Ty Lawson as he prepped both on and off the court for this Thursday's coming out. The piece had great access into Lawson and the team around him that is prepped to strike once his name is called, and how they can roll out the new branded Lawson to the Carolina faithful, and to the faithful of his new team. It is a very smart message to try and show potential fans, the media, teams and brands that Lawson is ready for the marketing and playing tasks ahead. however one thing that misses from the article, and is critical to be factored in…are the plans of the team he is selected by. Are they ready to work with Team Lawson on his brand roll out…does it conflict with anything they are planning for their elite customers or partner. Are both sides ready to work together to maximize the opportunity each has create. It sounds simple, but often times it is not. The best partnerships are when teams and athletes start from day one to pull for a common goal…brandwise, community wise, activation wise, access wise and most importantly playing wise. For every LeBron James brand, there are countless others that tried to build upon failed on court or on field focus, and although some athletes can succeed as marketing brands based on just performance, the opposite, brand success with limited on field success, is the rarest of the rare. The Lawson prep story shows smarts by his team…hopefully he lands with the right team that can take advantage of his smarts both on and off the court.
Some other good reads….Darren Rovell has a great q and a with IMG's Mark Steinberg…the Fort Worth Star Telegram has a good feature on the 50th anniversary of Dave Campbell's Texas Football…and si.com's Jon Wertheim had a good sneak peak at last year's epic Nadal-Federer Wimbledon match, which he fashioned into his latest book.
