X Marks Spot for Youth-Skewing Advertisers

The X Games, the 15-year-old creation of ESPN to promote wild competitions in skateboarding and rally car racing among other youth-skewing sports, gets underway today in Los Angeles. Like it's unofficial big brother the Olympics, the X Games goes after big-money sponsors. But the messages and tactics of these sponsors can be significantly different.

Tripp Mickle, a reporter for the Sports Business Journal (a sister publication to Portfolio.com, both are owned by American City Business Journals), offered this description of sponsor strategy during an interview with NPR's Marketplace:

This really grew out of a challenge that they tend to be resistant to any kind of brand imagery. They don't want to be smacked in the face with Gatorade talking about how great a drink it is in a traditional commercial format. It takes something a little more subtle and a little more creative. For years, videos have been big among people who are skateboarders or BMX riders. And brands basically took the idea of the video, borrowed it for themselves and inserted their own product in video kind of showcasing athletes that they had endorsement deals with.

Mickle gave the example of Gatorade giving BMX pro Nigel Sylvester about $15,000 to create "day in the life" videos that the company used to promote its product. The strategy led to about 180,000 views on YouTube for the videos Sylvester shot. This, according to Mickle, was a good showing in Gatorade's quest to appeal to the 12-34 year old male audience.

When you look at Gatorade, for example, I mean on a case by case basis, you would have to say this is beneficial for them, because they've just moved into this world of action sports. I mean, for other companies, it's a great way to launch a brand, you know. If you can create something viral and get people to come to it and pass it around and spend time with it and create a cool factor and a cool buzz, I think your brand stands a strong chance of either getting off the ground or a new product stands a good chance of taking off.

To see the full Marketplace transcript, click here. And to read the Sports Business Journal, click here.