пятница, 21 сентября 2012 г.

Rising Retail, Marketing Efforts Parallel Growth of Women's Soccer. - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jun. 20 -- The three-week-long Women's World Cup soccer tournament is underway across the country this weekend, including two games in Foxborough today, providing women who play team sports with a huge and rare opportunity to capture the public's attention.

Corporate sponsors and licensed manufacturers, through marketing and retail campaigns, will play key roles in determining whether women will now reap some of the popular acclaim and commercial success long enjoyed by men's professional sports. So far, businesses like what they see in the emerging image of women in the plucky, demanding sport of soccer, and they are promoting the cause.

'I think there's no question that an event that's strictly women athletes, that's sold over a half-million tickets, and which 1 billion viewers will watch on television worldwide, has the potential to set a new standard for women's sports,' said Dean Stoyer, who helped design Nike's multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that features Mia Hamm, the star of the US team.

While individual women competing in golf, tennis, and figure skating have struggled for years to claim some of the spotlight from men, only the Women's National Basketball Association and the playing of the Women's World Cup in the United States have provided significant financial opportunities in the team sports.

'For years, women athletes had been almost untouchables when it came to things like endorsing products,' said Bob Williams, president of the Burns Celebrity Sports Service, a Chicago-based company that links advertisers and athletes. 'In the mid-'90s there was an explosion, but it was figure skaters like Nancy Kerrigan or tennis stars like Martina Hingis and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena. Only now are we getting any action for team sport players, like Cheryl Swoopes in basketball and, now, in a very large way, Mia Hamm in soccer.'

Soccer has endured growing pains, striving to become a major sport in this country. But observers say it might be different for the women. For one thing, unlike the men's national team, the women win. They took the first Women's World Cup in 1991, the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and they are favored to win the World Cup this year, on their home turf. (Seats are available for today's games at the Foxborough Stadium box office; TV coverage is at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN and 4 p.m. on ESPN2.)

'America likes winners and big events -- and we like being identified with them as a company,' said Bruce Hudson, director of international sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. 'We were the first out of the box with a commercial during the men's World Cup last year that had lots of action footage, and helped create an image for a group of women players who clearly have become more and more popular with a lot of people.'

The image is becoming so popular that Mattel is selling Women's World Cup Barbie dolls at prominent store displays around the country. Gillette Co. has clamored to position its stadium signs in prominent spots for the international television exposure. And the Allstate Insurance Co. decided to be an official sponsor of the tournament, the first time in the 67-year history of the company that it has sponsored athletics.

'We're excited about it because it clearly helps us with a target audience of younger women with families,' said Raleigh Ford, a marketing spokesman for Allstate.

Observers say the intersection of two significant demographic trends makes the current Women's World Cup attractive to corporations: Women and girls are participating in team sports in greater numbers than ever, with big increases in this decade, and women continue to be the preeminent decision makers on retail purchases.

'What you have is what you might call the children of the Title IX generation causing a huge leap in participation levels by women and girls in sports that were long the preserve of male athletes. The question becomes, will that translate in the next generation, the grandchildren of Title IX, to popularity among spectators and television viewers?' said Robert Madrigal, of the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. Passed into law in 1972, Title IX mandated equitable opportunities to play sports for girls attending schools that receive federal funds.

'This Women's World Cup could be a hugely important development -- especially if the US women do well -- and if the companies that were smart enough to get involved are smart with their marketing,' Madrigal said.

One measure of the importance of a sports event is whether Adidas and Nike fight over sponsorship -- and they are fighting over the Women's World Cup. Adidas, the largest manufacturer of soccer shoes and equipment in the world, has joined 10 other companies in paying $6 million to be an official sponsor. Adidas is using the trademarks of the tournament in its advertising, along with pictures of members of the US women's team, like Kristine Lilly.

However, Nike has refused to be eclipsed, embracing the event by financing a national tour of the US team that began last year. Nike also has launched the sort of marketing campaign featuring Hamm that it once used to make Michael Jordan a national icon, even using Jordan in some of the spots with Hamm.

In one TV commercial, Hamm and Jordan challenge each other in a variety of sports from sprinting to fencing while a woman's voice sings, 'Anything you can do, I can do better. ...'

'We have always sold casual footwear well to women and girls, but this is a battle for the performance footwear market, which is really growing among female consumers,' Nike's Stoyer said. 'From 1991 to 1998, there's been an 86 percent growth rate in the number of girls participating in soccer at the high school level and a 120 percent increase in college. We want those new customers.

'We've worked with Mia since 1994, and I can tell you that if Mia Hamm wants to wear it, you can be pretty sure that a lot of 14-year-old girls are going to want to wear it, too,' Stoyer said. 'Once, they wanted to be like Mike. Now, they want to be like Mia.'

Hamm now appears as a spokeswoman for at least 15 companies.

Other women players on the US soccer team who have garnered endorsement contracts with various companies include Briana Scurry, Brandi Chastain, Tiffeny Milbrett and Tisha Venturini.

As Nike's Jordan commercials proved, such marketing not only benefits the company, but it helps create the image and mythology of the sport. Basketball was still in recovery from the drug scandals of the 1970s and early 1980s when the Jordan commercials began to air, and they helped revitalize the NBA.

Fans of women's sports are hoping for something of the same for women's soccer.

'What's new is the sense that this has never happened for women in team sports,' said Lucy Danzinger, editor of Women's Sports & Fitness. 'This girl gang of passionate soccer players is being allowed to compete in a way that only men have competed before. And, well, it's about time. We're thrilled!'

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