They pace the sidelines during March Madness, but increasingly they’re becoming prevalent away from the court as well.
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The animated Tom Izzo of Michigan State makes a popular pitchman. |
College basketball coaches, the face of their program and often the face of their school, are in demand now more than ever as brands tap into their celebrity quotient. Close to 20 college basketball coaches are being used in TV and online ads for NCAA corporate sponsors during March Madness. Among the most popular: Geno Auriemma, the women’s basketball coach at the University of Connecticut; and Tom Izzo, the men’s coach at Michigan State.
Unlike the pros, where the players are the stars, college athletes are not permitted to endorse products per NCAA rules. So brands have latched onto the coaches for their recognizability and sideline theatrics, which transfer naturally to the camera.
“We’ve found the basketball coaches to be very animated and even pretty good at ad-libbing in these spots,” said Jeff Garrant, account director at GroupM ESP, which represents NCAA partner Unilever and its Dove for Men brand.
Once the domain of only the game’s legends, such as Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, endorsements are seeping deeper into the college game. UPS is using Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, UConn’s Auriemma and UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, as well as former Purdue women’s coach Carolyn Peck. Capital One has tapped Auriemma, Izzo, Missouri’s Mike Anderson and Kansas’ Bill Self. Georgetown coach John Thompson III is featured in a Dove for Men spot.
All are accomplished basketball coaches, but never before have sponsors seen them as anchors to national ad campaigns like they do now.
“It comes down to brands wanting to stay current and they can’t use the current athletes,” Garrant said. “So the stars you can use are the coaches. They’re very personable, almost NASCAR-esque in that regard. They are used to being in the spotlight, even more so than college football coaches, so they aren’t shy. When they’re on the sidelines, everyone knows who the basketball coaches are, but the football coaches are one of about a hundred people on the sideline.”
The 13 NCAA corporate champions and partners have access to the coaches because, in addition to their NCAA deal, they build in corporate sponsorships with the men’s and women’s coaches’ associations — the NABC and the WBCA. When they negotiate their deals, the brands get time with coaches, typically 30 minutes to an hour, rolled into their NABC and WBCA sponsorships.
Charleston, S.C.-based Fishbait Marketing, which represents the NABC and WBCA, works with the partners to select coaches and create basketball-themed activation. Fishbait’s role helps brands navigate the college space to find the right coach and set up the time.
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COURTESY OF CAPITAL ONE
Capital One tried to film the coaches' spots quickly out of respect for their schedules, but things took a little longer with Izzo, aka "the leader of Sparta." |
“They really help streamline the process,” said Marc Mentry, managing vice president, advertising and sponsorships, for Capital One. “We know the coaches have very hectic schedules and we need to respect their time. In all of our spots, we took less than an hour with each guy. It was a little longer with Coach Izzo because there was more makeup and dress involved.”
NCAA partners spend mid-to-high seven figures, while corporate champion deals (AT&T, Capital One, Coca-Cola) can range into the eight figures. The coaches associations get paid instead of the individual coaches, but coaches volunteer to be part of the spots because it increases the visibility of their program and theoretically helps recruiting, while also promoting basketball and helping drive revenue into their trade association.
Infiniti, in its second year as a March Madness sponsor and the first year as an NCAA corporate partner, used exclusive interviews from 16 basketball coaches in a “Round by Round” bracket promotion on CBSSports.com.
Content from the 16 coaches will also appear on TV as branded features on the Infiniti-sponsored pregame shows during the NCAA tournament. Some of the coaches are familiar names, such as Krzyzewski and Izzo, while others like Baylor’s Scott Drew and Purdue’s Matt Painter are fresh faces.
“Coaches aren’t just the focal point of the program, they’re also becoming increasingly polished,” said Aaron Anderson, associate director for integrated programs at OMD, which worked with Infiniti. “In most cases, we had only 20 to 30 minutes to shoot the interviews and the coaches cranked out great content.”
Rick Jones, the captain of Fishbait Marketing, said only a couple of coaches were used last year by Infiniti and Capital One, but “we’re significantly up this year,” he said of the number of coaches being used.
“Our mission with the coaches associations is to celebrate the game, and these brands are supporting college athletics, so anything we can do to help, we do it,” Jones said.
OMD’s Anderson added: “We felt like last year we had more ownership of the college space because we were one of the few using coaches. This year, there are quite a number of brands using coaches.”
Capital One used Izzo, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and North Carolina’s Roy Williams with the Ivan Brothers last year and it went so well that the credit card company came back with more coaches this year. Most of the content from this year’s “Visigoth SportsNet” will run online at youtube.com/capitalone and on March Madness on Demand, while some will be edited into commercials and branded content during the tournament. Capital One also is taking ads to ESPN where it has a sizable ad spend.
“The first thing we all said this year was, ‘We’ve got to have the coaches.’ They’re that good,” Mentry said. “They’re in positions as coaches where they’re like improv actors because they never know what a reporter is going to ask. They’re put on the spot all the time and they’re good on their feet.”
The coaches usually appear without any attachment to the school where they work. For the brands to use the
school’s marks, they would need to go through the school’s multimedia rights holder and that could lead to additional fees. In one case, a school wanted a partner to pay $25,000 to use the coach in an ad and the partner decided to go elsewhere. Because the coaches association works directly with the coach, some rights holders said they weren’t even aware that their coach was involved in an ad shoot.
“Part of it is that the coaches are
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| UPS is using (from top) forrmer Purdue women’s coach Carolyn Peck, UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma, Notre Dame men’s coach Mike Brey and UCLA AD Dan Guerrero. |
respectful of the association and want to help, but it’s more than that,” said Jim Haney, executive director of the NABC. “The bigger commitment is to growing the game and the coaches understand that they play a big role as champions of basketball. They also know that this time of year is our opportunity to talk about basketball when the game is front and center.”
Capital One’s “Visigoth” spots introduce the coaches without referring to their schools. Anderson is an “NCAA coach,” not the Missouri coach. Self is the “legendary coach,” not the Kansas coach. Auriemma appears in a plain shirt with a Nike logo, but there’s no reference to UConn.
UPS’ spots (youtube.com/ups), however, do identify Brey as the Notre Dame coach and Auriemma as the UConn coach, but both are wearing sport coats and not school logos.
Jones said the coaches are sensitive not to work for any brands that might conflict with their school’s sponsors. If a coach’s school has a relationship with FedEx, for example, Jones would not have recommended that coach to UPS, which in fact, is a corporate partner at UConn.
“The college space, as we all know, is fraught with problems in category exclusivity and multiple rights holders,” Jones said. “Everybody wants to feed from the same trough. … We don’t have the coaches appear in their school gear because the partner might not have the rights to that school, so we try to be sensitive to that and not use the school’s marks.”
