It usually goes like this: A small company sponsors a small group of athletes committed to the core of their sport. The company and the athletes enrich each other through their authentic devotion to the sport they love. The company and the athletes grow together in stature and, for the company, in revenue.
Then the company thinks, “Hey, our marketing and our business took off when we sponsored just 10 people. Why don’t we sponsor 50?”
And right there the power of the brand weakens, diluted to a fifth of what it was. The mistake most companies make is thinking that it’s the sponsoring that helps their marketing. And that more of one will create more of the other.
In reality, it’s not the sponsoring that authenticated the brand, but the exclusivity of the athlete selection process. Initially, this selection is limited for financial reasons. The budget is what it is, and it gets allocated toward the best athletes that apply. A beneficial serendipity is that the scarcity of available support for athletes legitimizes the brand as desirable.
When business booms and the marketing budget increases, what a strong brand should do is increase it’s support of it’s already-focused team, not dilute it by adding new members. Diamonds and Ferraris are valuable because they’re rare. If everybody had a Ferrari, or if anyone can be sponsored by your brand, then it’s not worth anything anymore.
If you keep it exclusive, you keep it coveted. If it stays coveted, it stays valued. And valuable things stay desirable.
