Written by: Tim Nooney, Account Coordinator
Our latest Hot Take installment comes from Darby Communications Account Coordinator & professional mountain runner Tim Nooney. Outside of his hard work with Darby Comm, Tim is a talented ultrarunner supported by several brand partners, a position that gives him unique insight into how brands should be tapping into their athlete teams for PR purposes.
Much of earned media hinges on sharing the latest news and products with writers, who in turn share it with their audiences. It’s less about converting sales and more about increasing brand awareness and authority through third-party validation. As public relations professionals, we manage the relationships to build this excitement and momentum for brands.
Journalists love the opportunity to share stories when a brand has a cool new product launch or activation to share, but brands don’t always have a new product in the line-up for each season. That’s where PR efforts can pivot to sharing personality-driven leads that align with the brand’s strategic or product initiatives, and is where athlete and ambassador stories can really shine.
It’s rare to see a brand utilize an athlete partnership much outside of social or paid media slots and typically, it’s images of them doing some aspirational activity from a bucket-list destination. These pictures are great content, but failing to dive deeper into the athletes’ stories is a miss on the part of the brand. There is often so much more to an athlete’s story, and they’re usually excited to share it with the media. This does require an added layer of trust between the athlete and the brand; trust that the athlete will represent them in feature pieces, that images used in the piece will likely feature their product, and that readers will connect with the brand through the story’s subject. It also requires advocacy, education, and trust from PR pros and brand marketing teams to increase their storytelling in ways that typically aren’t folded into the scope of contracts, which is why it’s so underutilized.
Several editors I work with have shared that they’re actively trying to connect with people doing interesting things. However, athletes often lack the experience and tools that PR pros regularly use to share this type of story, and creators lack the bandwidth to research these people for outreach. That’s where a brand’s PR team can and should come in to support. A well-crafted athlete pitch goes beyond records and accomplishments and should highlight the athlete’s passions in their communities. Landing a feature piece for a brand highlighting the athletes they’ve already contracted grounds the brand into real human experience and has a stronger emotional impact than SEO-optimized product round-ups.
Strategy
As a professional athlete, I get brand support to go out and run my best. Brands value content, influence, and, most importantly, performance. With each performance or event appearance, the brand receives a return where it can attach value, whether that’s a press release announcing a winning athlete at a race, using my likeness for catalog photography and social media posts, or shoes on the ground at a race representing the brand. Part of my job is to be a built-in news generator for them locally, regionally, and nationally.
Many brands underutilize the investment in an athlete and underestimate their ability to connect the brand more emotionally with its audience. Getting an athlete’s story picked up by journalists allows the brand to garner a story with more teeth and build trust with readers, who see the brand as more than just a product-pusher, but as a brand that supports the community they care about. With these stories, brands can still get product placement peppered into the piece with a more authentic feel than a straight-up product review (which is also important in a different way).
I show value to my sponsors by using timely successes to leverage exposure opportunities through interviews or articles and collaborating to help elevate the brand to new audiences.
When taking this approach to PR for brand-sponsored athletes, there are several effective strategies to blend athlete-driven content and product inclusion to benefit everyone involved including:
- An athlete or regional profile to generate buzz with no new brand news
- Expert voice pitching for an aspirational pursuit
- Product validation from an athlete for a new launch
- Story mining around an athlete’s notable accomplishments
Tapping into its network of sponsored athletes to generate earned media coverage is a win-win for brands, allowing them to maximize their investment in athletes while supporting and elevating their efforts as a true partner.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we help our brands maximize their athlete and ambassador partnerships, learn more here or drop us a line here.