Mastercard's Athlete Endorsement Strategy

Notable celebrity-brand partnerships drive significant exposure in the marketing and advertising world, but a key question persists: what goes into the process behind which brands source, evaluate and ultimately select celebrity endorsements as part of a larger marketing strategy? Is this selection an arbitrary process, or one that carefully aligns with strategic objectives surrounding customer passion points, new business goals, and support for emerging product lines? Written in collaboration with Mastercard's VP and Head of Sponsorships for North America Michael Goldstein, this case examines Mastercard's overarching sponsorship strategy, summarizes notable athlete endorsement theory and models for endorser selection, and ultimately tasks students with the assignment of working through a hypothetical, but applied, endorser selection process featuring eight (8) prominent soccer athletes and their adjoining E-Poll endorser scores.
$6.00
    Author:Will Norton & Jahaan Bharucha        Product Number:MCC-02620    
    Price:$6       Format:Digital PDF    
    Publication Date:Feb 1, 2021       Case Study Length:11 pages    
    Last Updated:Feb 1, 2021       Teaching Note Length:3 pages    

 

Customers who bought this item also bought

Leveraging Rivalries in Sponsorship Activation

After discerning key marketing insights from Dr. Tyler and Dr. Cobbs' Know Rivalry research lab, and with consideration of MLS’s unique ability to deliver brand awareness at a league and club levels through the ownership model, students will identify several local markets that present strong fan interest in rivalries and could pay off greatly for a smart new sponsor. With the Heineken Rivalry Week program currently in use as a benchmark, students will apply the case theory to prospect a new food-at-home sponsorship category. The case provides an engaging and differentiated narrative to team students ways in which they can apply MLS rivalry research in a responsible way, to sustain the best parts of fans’ passions while leveraging a new partner to promote the narratives of MLS rivalries.
$6.00

Public Subsidization of Abandonment

For nearly a century, owners of U.S. professional sports teams have lobbied respective governmental bodies for public subsidies to build stadiums and arenas across the country, using franchise relocation as leverage. Myriad justifications have been used as a defense for the public subsidization of this private enterprise, ranging from the economic impact of capital intensive projects to the psychic regional benefit of being a host city to a professional sports franchise. But do these justifications hold up under increased scrutiny? In this case, students are placed in the position of the Mayor of Oakland as she is faced with a dilemma regarding publicly subsidizing a new Raiders stadium. Students will examine the issue through the lens of multiple key stakeholders, and will ultimately have to decide whether the city should utilize public funds to keep the Davis family happy and the Raiders in Oakland, or withhold funding for public good and risk the franchise relocating elsewhere.
$6.00

A Rebirth of Rivals to the NFL Monopoly

Throughout the 20th century, football grew to be America's new pastime - and as the sport's popularity grew, so did the NFL's fortunes. From early league leadership to the Pete Rozelle era, the NFL successfully warded off rival league challengers and became the preeminent economic juggernaut of the American sports landscape. But as the NFL's financial dominance has grown, so has its risk exposure to certain elements of its 20th century business model. In this case, students will work to understand the NFL's monopolistic business model and how it has fueled the NFL's financial windfalls over the past several decades. Students will also gain an understanding of the history of rival football leagues in America in order to analyze the question facing the modern NFL management team: is its business model vulnerable to disruption by a handful of well-funded rival leagues set to start play in 2019?
$6.00

Hot Stove Contracts: Incorporating Time Value of Money into MLB Free Agent Analysis

Every year, the proverbial “Hot Stove League” in baseball’s off-season prompts myriad headlines about outsized player contracts. But do these nominal values tell the whole story? In this case, students will be tasked with representing a fictional baseball player, Rolando Mateo, as he works his way through his first free agent negotiation. By drawing on fundamental concepts of the time value of money and balancing qualitative considerations with quantitative analyses, students will work to rank Mateo’s offers—and provide their client with a final recommendation for his path forward.
$6.00