All Brands Are Not Created Equal: Understanding the Role of Athletes in Sport-Brand Architecture

IntroductionIn today's highly competitive market, branding has become an integral part of marketing and management, as a traditional marketing mix approach alone is no longer sufficient to differentiate the product or service from that of competitors (Kapferer, 2012). As Keller (1998) quoted the famous words of Levitt (I960), "New competition is not between what companies produce, but what they add in the form of things that people value" (p. 4). Managers now strive to understand consumer value to build strong brand equity. This includes sustainable growth drivers, such as brand loyalty, extension opportunity, as well as increasing sales and image enhancement (Aaker, 1996a, 1996b; Berry, 2000; Keller, 1998). This paradigm shift from product marketing to branding has changed our perspective from product-oriented management to customer-oriented (e.g., Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993), and the sport industry is no exception.Sport managers and scholars realize that winning alone does not equal success for sport organizations (Gladden & Funk, 2001, 2002; Kaynak, Salman, & Tatoglu, 2007). As a result, sport managers and scholars now view and manage teams and organizations as brands and focus on the value consumers for the products and services they provide (e.g., Bauer, Sauer, & Schmitt, 2005; Gladden & Funk, 2002; Gladden, Milne, & Sutton, 1998; Ross, 2006; Ross, James, & Vargas, 2006). Prior studies have advanced our understanding of branding; however, with regard to sport, team sport brands have garnered most of the attention. Keller (2002) argued that branding research has focused exclusively on what he defined as the small "b," whereas the industry has been applying large "B" concepts in various areas. For example, while practitioners across various areas (e.g., religion, politics, education, entertainment, sport) have advanced their application of branding to human beings (Rein, Kotier, & Shields, 2006), scholars have restricted the scope of inquiry to the inanimate targets such as corporations, products, and services (Hughes, 2007). Williams, Kim, Walsh, and Choi (2015) acknowledged this limitation and argued that future branding research should examine the role of the athlete in brand management research.Although referring to humans as brands is relatively new, in sport there are many examples of successful athletes who have enjoyed benefits from applying branding concepts to their careers (Arai, Ko, & Ross, 2013; Parmentier & Fischer, 2012). Furthermore, leagues, teams, and tournaments also benefit from athletes' high visibility as human brands. Examples include Tiger Woods, David Beckham, and Derek Jeter. Despite the prevalence of athletes using their celebrity status in the greater marketplace, researchers have not investigated this phenomenon (e.g., Arai, Ko, & Kaplanidou, 2013; Arai et ah, 2013; Hughes, 2007; Parmentier & Fischer, 2012; Thomson, 2006). Therefore, we reason that given the scope and utilization of athlete brands in the marketplace, a conceptualization of the various role athletes have in the brand architecture is warranted.The purpose of this article is to build and provide a foothold for further development of athlete-branding research. Therefore, in the ensuing sections of this article, we evaluate prior literature in order to define appropriately athletes as brands and subsequently present the Athlete Brand Relationship Spectrum (ABRS). The ABRS illustrates the various relationships that athlete brands have within sport-brand architecture.What Is an Athlete Brand? Research has suggested that, due to their celebrity status, athletes have the ability to influence consumers' perceptions towards a product, service, or organization (e.g., Boyd & Shank, 2004; Jowdy & McDonald, 2002; Ohanian, 1991; Till, 2001). Athletes have an integral role in helping organizations increase awareness and create positive associations for their products and services, all the while building their own personal brand (Erdogan, 1999). …