Like Nike or Adidas, athlete’s themselves can also be thought of as a brand. And many athletes have been able to boost their brand and cash in on their popularity through the micro blogging site Twitter. For example, back in 2011, Shaquille O’Neal’s media strategists estimated that he could earn one to five million dollars through brand shout-outs on Twitter alone (“$5 million in 140 characters,” 2011). This was due to his 4.3 million followers, which has since grown to around 6.3 million in less than a year (“$5 million in 140 characters,” 2011; ; https://twitter.com/SHAQ).

Although Twitter allows sports athletes to present their own message, communicate with followers, and potentially earn a significant amount of advertising revenue dollars, the media is filled with a number of Twitter horror stories. The fact is that these ‘tweets’ are often unfiltered by marketers or public relation professionals (Pegoraro, 2010). This lack of filtration has gotten some of the tweeting athletes into more than a little hot water.

Athletes in this summer’s past Olympic games were not immune to the negative ramifications that can come from inappropriate Twitter remarks. For example, Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella was sent home from the Olympic games for tweeting insulting comments about another team, while Greek triple jumper Paraskevi Papahristou was booted from his team for his own derogatory Twitter comments which were shared over 100 times (Belson, 2012).

According to an article in the LA Times, Twitter can allow for one to quickly build up a brand. However, Twitter’s simplicity of use and “a lack of social-media training” can lead to missteps that can quickly destroy a brand as well (Holmes, 2011). But if a mistake does take place, all may not be lost. Experts say, “brands can be repaired if demands for transparency are met – quickly (Holmes, 2011).”

The above discussion clearly points out the need to further study athletes on Twitter. There is already a significant amount of research on the topic with some of the studies focusing on classifying what athletes are saying while on Twitter (Hambrick et al., 2011; Pegoraro, 2010; Blaszka, 2011). This article may draw on some of these findings and further the investigation by taking a look at athlete brand equity development as a function of being formed and co-created through athlete ‘tweets’ and follower interactions. More specifically, this article will look at the attention Twitter missteps may bring, the acceptance or non-acceptance of athlete apologies, and how this impacts brand image, knowledge, and ultimately equity.

According to Keller (1993), brand equity can occur only in the presence of brand knowledge. Keller (1993) further breaks brand knowledge into two components, brand awareness and brand image. Berry (2000), in his service-branding model appears to present the same two concepts giving one a different title. Berry (2000) suggests that brand awareness and brand meaning (brand image) both impact service brand equity. Clearly brand awareness and brand meaning represent important concepts within the branding literature and will be of use to this present article.

As presented by Berry (2000), external brand communication can impact both brand awareness and brand meaning. Berry (2000) defines external brand communication as “information customers absorb about the company and its service that essentially is uncontrolled by the company.” In the present context, an athlete’s tweet is the “presented brand” while “external brand communication” can be thought of as the comments posted by the athlete’s followers. In essence this can be viewed as a type of word of mouth (WOM) (Berry, 2000).

The above explanation meshes nicely with the idea of the prosumer and service dominant logic. The prosumer is one who both consumes and produces (Ritzer et al., 2012). This is exactly the case when it comes to some of the followers of athletes on Twitter. These followers not only consume the message of the athlete, but they develop its meaning and significance with their own comments as well. Ritzer et al. (2012) stated, “this process is also clear in the case of brands where consumers play a major role in producing the shared meanings that are the brand; they do not simply accept the brand messages created by marketers and advertisers. Thus, in a real sense, prosumers produce the meaning that surrounds brands such as McDonald’s, BMW, and Nike.” This same line of reasoning is displayed in the idea of service dominant logic. Lusch et al. (2007) states the importance of co-creation in adding value as a foundational premise of service-dominant logic.

As can be seen in recent cases, mistakes made by athletes on Twitter, such as that made by Greek triple jumper Paraskevi Papahristou, can have grave consequences. A poor statement can bring a great deal of attention for the athlete who makes the mistake bringing a greater level of brand awareness to the athlete. However, this can come at cost to the athlete in the form of a hit to his or her own brand image. This is often followed by a tweet with an explanation, excuse, or apology. But how accepting are followers of the athlete’s response? What drives acceptance, and how does this impact the brand image of the athlete and ultimately brand equity? This article proposes that a consumer’s acceptance of an athlete’s explanation, excuse, or apology following a Twitter mistake is not only dependent on what the athlete communicates (i.e. the presented brand), but also on the reactions (WOM) presented by other followers. In essence, the athlete’s brand image and ultimately brand equity is co-created with his or her fans, haters, and spectators.

But to what extent do comments from Twitter followers really influence an individual’s perception of an athlete, and to what extent do these comments influence one’s acceptance of an athlete’s apology? This article attempts to shed some light on these questions, and add to the persuasion literature by incorporating the elaboration likelihood model with a focus on an individual’s involvement level (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann, 1983; Petty and Cacioppo, 1986).

References

$5 million in 140 characters. (2011, November 10). Men’s Journal, Retrieved from http://archive.mensjournal.com/5-million-in-140-characters

Belson, K. (2012, July 30). Swiss athlete sent home for twitter remark. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/sports/olympics/swiss-soccer-player-michel-morganella-sent-home-for-twitter-remark.html?_r=0

Berry, Leonard L. 2000. “Cultivating Service Brand Equity.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28 (1): 128-137.

Blaszka, M. An Examination of Sports Consumers’ Twitter Usage. Georgia State University Departmen of Kinesiology and Health, May 7, 2011.

Hambrick, M.E., Simmons, J.M., Greenhalgh, G.P., & Greenwell, T.C. (2011). Understanding professional athletes’ use of Twitter: A content analysis of athlete tweets. International Journal of Sport Communication, 3(4), 454-471.

Holmes, B. (2011, May 15). When athletes post on twitter, controversy can follow. Los angeles times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/15/sports/la-sp-0516-athletes-twitter-20110516

Keller, Kevin Lane (1993). Conceptualizing, measuring., & managing customer-based brand equity, Journal of Marketing, 57 (January), 1–22

Lusch, R.P., Vargo, S. L., and O’Brien, M., (2007), “Competing Through Service: Insights from Service-Dominant Logic,” Journal of Retailing, Vol. 83, No. 1, 5-18.

Petty, Richard E., John T. Cacioppo, and David Schumann (1983), “Central and Peripheral Routes to Advertising Effectiveness: The Moderating Role of Involvement,” Journal of Consumer Research, 10 (September), 135-146

Petty, R.E. & Cacioppo, J.T. (1986b) The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, pp. 123–205.

Ritzer, G., Dean, P., & Jurgenson, N. (2012). The coming of age of the prosumer. The American Behavioral Scientist, 56, 379-398.

Pegoraro, A. (2010) Look who‘s talking—athletes on Twitter: a case study. International Journal of Sport Communication,3, 501-514.