No sweat. Merchandising No. 45 should be a slam dunk.
With Michael Jordan’s return to the hardwood, America’s premier marketers are betting substantial promotional fortunes that Superman with a new cape (the No. 45 on his jersey) can once again give their businesses a boost.
Jordan’s promotional wizardry, like his magic on the court, did wonders for corporate America before his retirement, now viewed as a sabbatical, almost 18 months ago.
Even while Jordan struggled in the minor leagues in a bid to make it to baseball’s big time, his popularity wasn’t hurt all that much.
A survey as recent as last September by Opinion Research showed that Jordan ranked No. 2 to Oprah Winfrey as the favorite celebrity spokesperson. Jordan was followed by Rush Limbaugh, Candice Bergen and Bill Cosby. Even though he was under indictment for murder, O.J. Simpson, the once high-flying Hertz Rent-a-Car spokesman, ranked No. 6.
It’s Jordan’s recognition, credibility and superior camera presence that have captured the likes of Nike, Quaker Oats’ Gatorade, McDonald’s, General Mills’ Wheaties, Sara Lee Corp. and Wilson Sporting Goods, just to mention a few of the high-caliber endorsees who have collectively been paying him more than $30 million a year to hype their products.
Even while Jordan was mulling over the possibility of returning to basketball, advertisers were shifting promotional gears to support his re-emergence on the court. And some firms moved quickly with Jordan’s re-debut Sunday against the Indiana Pacers.
With a 10-year contract worth an estimated $18 million, Gatorade has a big stake in MJ.
“He’s the world’s greatest demo for Gatorade,” said a source close to Quaker.
Less than a week before Jordan announced his comeback, Gatorade began airing a Jordanesque campaign with a TV commercial showing him running through what appears to be Himalayan terrain, finally reaching a shelter where a saffron-robed guru is waiting.
The guru hands Jordan a bottle of Gatorade and tells MJ: “Life is a sport. Drink it up.”
While this campaign is open-ended, Gatorade began running a 30-second TV spot this week titled “If Michael Returns” (from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”), with footage from National Basketball Association archives and ad agency Bayer Bess Vanderwarker’s library of Jordan film. This spot is airing only on telecasts of Bulls games, running at least through this weekend.
This extra Gatorade effort obviously is much more timely than the guru spot because it’s Jordan’s exploits on the court that provide the payoff for the firms he represents.
“Everybody loves the guy,” said a Chicago ad agency executive, “but he’s not a baseball player in the eyes of consumers. Jordan is much more comfortable on the basketball court and, conversely, advertisers or firms who want his services also are comfortable with that basketball link.”
People identify more strongly with an athlete or performer in a sport where he or she has dominated or starred as against a sport such as baseball, where MJ was laboring to ultimately achieve major-league status.
Look at it this way: White Sox slugger Frank Thomas, who was a decent freshman football end at Auburn University, would hardly command endorsement dollars if he decided to switch careers and go the basketball route.
So it’s all a matter of the particular sports platform where a star athlete participates. Jordan belongs in basketball. Ditto for Thomas in baseball, when the major-league strike is settled.
In coming weeks, if not days, look for Jordan’s corporate sponsors to come up with marketing strategies to capitalize on his basketball renaissance.
It is very likely that MJ or a likeness of His Airness will appear on Wheaties packages that will be primarily distributed in the Chicago market. This would be No. 13 for Jordan on Wheaties-10 times by himself and three times with other Bulls.
Jordan, who has been working for Wheaties since 1988, is credited by General Mills with helping sales of that brand. But a recent product-reformulation commercial for that cereal doesn’t feature Jordan, though he’s seen in it.
With Jordan again a basketball player, another safe bet is that he’ll be showcased more prominently in a future commercial for Wheaties, a brand whose sales recently have been very soggy, like a 4 percent drop in dollar volume in the last three months of 1994.
Aside from the Gatorade-Jordan relationship, Nike’s celebrated pact with Jordan may be the most beneficial for both parties. Until his October 1993 retirement, more than $200 million annually in Air Jordan footwear and Jordan apparel was being sold by Nike. Jordan reportedly was raking in as much as $20 million annually, including royalties, for endorsing the line and appearing in the commercials. Sales of the line dipped when he retired from basketball.
By some coincidence, a new line of Jordan basketball footwear and apparel was recently introduced to the retail trade for sale this year. Did Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike know that Jordan was coming back?
Not necessarily. In early March, Nike began running a Jordan baseball TV spot featuring him with Spike Lee. A week later, the spot was yanked because it was no longer relevant.
High-profile or not, Jordan isn’t for every marketer-and he doesn’t come cheap. For a long time, a minimum $1 million annual endorsement fee was included in a multiyear contract, though this arrangement was bent in a few cases by his Washington-based agent, David Falk.
No doubt that minimum fee will be increased, probably to $2 million annually and perhaps with a five-year guarantee, if Jordan and his agent agree on firms interested in linking up with MJ.
Falk, who heads Falk Associates Management Enterprises, is pulling in top dollar, like 3 percent, on Jordan’s $3.85 million-a-year contract with the Bulls and 15 to 23 percent on endorsement contracts he negotiates for MJ, sources said.
Falk is very protective of his client. Not too long ago, Rancho Dominguez, Calif., toiletries maker Dep Corp. brought out a Jordan Magic toothbrush that sure sounded like a combination of MJ and Magic Johnson, the retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball star.
Falk complained, but struck out when Dep noted that the Jordan brand had existed for some time and wasn’t linked to the Bulls star or Johnson.
Yet despite his almost universal popularity, in a Chilton Research Services survey a year ago for the trade journal Adweek, Jordan made the top 10 in a list of celebrities who people say they are most sick of hearing about. (Roseanne Barr was the landslide winner.)
Nevertheless, Jordan’s popularity is unexcelled, especially in the sports world, as he enjoys unrestrained admiration from corporate America and the public.
As for No. 45, that jersey is going to generate big numbers for Sara Lee’s Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Champion Products unit, which is licensed to produce NBA-approved jerseys and other apparel. Champion has received orders for more than 20,000 dozen of the Jordan jerseys, “and we expect to do a lot better than that,” said a Champion official.
Before his retirement, Jordan’s No. 23 jersey was clearly No. 1 in sales, followed by Johnson and ex-Boston Celtic Larry Bird.
With Jordan into baseball, the best-selling pro basketball jerseys have been the Orlando Magic’s Shaquille O’Neal and the Detroit Pistons’ Grant Hill. Champion expects Jordan’s No. 45 to be the best seller for the 1995-1996 season, and sales of Bulls jerseys also should benefit.
When Jordan appeared on the court Sunday, he was chewing bubble gum-perhaps a new endorsee opportunity for him? Four years ago, Yorkville-based Amurol Confections, a unit of Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., brought out a Hang Time bubble gum in a deal with Jordan.
This arrangement was terminated after Jordan left basketball, but Amurol kept on sending him Big League Chew, another one of its brands, for some time.
Was Jordan chewing Amurol’s gum Sunday?
“I sure hope so,” said A.G. Atwater, president and chief executive officer of the firm.
