It was quite the weekend for two-year-old startup Wheels Up -- endorser Serena Williams won her 20th Grand Slam with a three-set victory over Lucie Safarova in the French Open, and hours later scored branding on Victor Espinoza, the jockey aboard the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. Williams has been an endorser for about a year, but the deal for American Pharoah came together suddenly in the two-and-a-half days before what would be the historic race. "I got a call 6:30am on Thursday from Ben Sturner of the Leverage Agency," said Wheels Up Founder & CEO Kenny Dichter. Leverage handles marketing for the horse. "He was thinking about us and it was less than 72 hours to the race, and he had an idea for some inventory. ... The silks that you saw, the lower back of them, we had three positions on the jockeys," Dichter said. "We also worked a deal to have Ahmed Zayat (the owner) wear our Wheels Up hats for all pre-race, during-race and post-race media." The deal for American Pharoah, which includes more promotions later this year, is outside the box for Wheels Up. Most of the company's sports marketing involves trading off jet hours for promotional appearances and ads, like with Williams. She has not yet been in a traditional print ad for Wheels Up, though Dichter said he is planning for one later this year. Most of her work to date for the firm has been through social media. Dichter said he decided the race offered a rare opportunity, declining to say how much he paid for the fairly traditional sports marketing buy. "The investment we made could (return) a hundred x, and that is literal," he said. "When the risk reward is right you push the purple chips up." Speaking yesterday morning, Dichter said his firm's web traffic was up close to 20 times normal volume, and what he called inbound leads were surging. Alas, Wheels Up cannot actually fly its new star endorser American Pharoah. "We probably can fly his oats," Dichter said.
