View: Their kingdom for a slice | Economic Times

July 24, 2021. On what was otherwise a tough morning for Indian athletes, Manipur’s Saikhom Mirabai Chanu lifted her way to India’s first Tokyo Olympic medal, a silver in the 49 kg weightlifting category. And, in the wake of the understandable celebrations around the country came the usual suspects — brands hoping to ride the success bandwagon.Chanu actually presented them with a golden opportunity by stating that after months of strict training and diet, she would celebrate that night with a pizza dinner. ‘First of all, I will go and have a pizza. It has been a long time since I ate it. I will eat a lot today,’ she said.That was enough for Domino’s Pizza, one of the largest players in the Indian fast food market, to immediately dispatch pizzas to her home in Imphal, taking many photographs with her bewildered family, and then tagging her photographs from Tokyo with their brand hashtag and a promise of a free lifetime of pizzas. This was widely hailed as a smart marketing coup and invited a fair amount of congratulatory and self-congratulatory posts on LinkedIn and other media.This is far from the first time this has happened. Congratulating athletes has been an excellent way for brands to gain salience, and keep themselves relevant without spending a rupee.In the west, they call it ‘newsjacking’, a term coined by marketing strategist David Meerman Scott in his 2011 book, Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage. And, while Amul has been ‘newsjacking’ with their creative topical for over four decades, other Indian brands have really started this in earnest from the onset of social media.There are a few reasons they have been getting away with this. First, for a lot of athletes without agents or an understanding of their rights, this seems normal. After all, after any international success, athletes are usually paraded along with every local politician and sports official around, looking to ride on their success. And, second, social media, where a lot of these infractions occur, seems to be a grey area where it’s difficult to pin down what constitutes ambush marketing.In reality, though, the rules are very clear. And the ethics even more so. A typical endorsement deal goes something like this. For an agreed sum of money, the endorser gets to use the athlete’s image rights in a certain period, and is usually also entitled to some time for shooting advertisements or participating in public relations activities for the brand.Domino’s EffectNowadays, these deals also include a guaranteed number of posts from the athlete’s social media handles. There are other more tactical short-term endorsement deals, some of which may only be for social media. These short-term deals typically tend to be signed close to significant sporting events in which the athlete is participating.Athletes like Chanu, from ‘unglamorous’ sports disciplines outside tennis and badminton, never mind cricket, really catch the public eye once every couple of years, either during the Olympic Games or the Asian or Commonwealth Games. In any other time, they barely make the sports page.So, brands officially sponsoring them actually get their pay-off in the short period just after a win. These brands usually have a roster of half a dozen athletes of which, perhaps, just one may actually register a big win. And, if in this crucial period, other brands choose to jump on without paying a paisa for sponsorship, then few sporting sponsors will find it making sense to keep supporting athletes.It happens more rarely in cricket, as the players usually have recourse to much better legal advice, and are more informed about their rights. A couple of years ago, when Prithvi Shaw scored a century on debut, a couple of unicorn brands immediately posted congratulatory messages on their social media handles. They were sent legal notices and finally had to take their posts down. But, even then, by the time the legal process was initiated, both brands had already got their publicity.For those who aren’t sure what the fuss is about, here are a couple of examples. Imagine a Salman Khan film release. Could a brand with no financial association with the star or the film take out an advertisement congratulating Salman Khan on his new release? Or even a series of social media posts from their official handle using the film poster and their hashtag?Making a Hashtag of ItWhat about a motorcycle brand deciding to congratulate Mahendra Singh Dhoni with a free bike using similar hashtags just after the 2011 World Cup win and putting their brand hashtag right out there over the picture of his trademark ‘helicopter shot’? Sounds ok? It doesn’t, does it?Jubilant FoodWorks, who are the franchise holders for American MNC Domino’s in India, made almost ₹4,000 crore in sales last year. They could easily officially support Chanu — and, with luck, they even might, on more sober consideration. But with every brand that uses these tactics and gets away with it, there will be one more brand unwilling to officially support an athlete because their rights are not protected. And, Indian sport, aside from cricket, needs every rupee of sponsorship it can raise.