Marketing Chad Johnson as Ocho Cinco

If you are a fan of American Football, you surely noticed that Chad Johnson legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco.  His jersey number is 85, and his nickname was always Ocho Cinco.  So, ala World B. Free (reader – remember that guy?) he decided to get rid of the ‘nick’ and make it his official name.   

Besides being a piece of brilliant self-promotion, this is going to change the face of how marketers engage with athletes!  Watch for corporations to start buying the names of athletes across all sports.

If you are involved in marketing in anyway, start talking to your clients about ‘Personal Brand Names’ (Reader – If you or your clients have not heard of PBN before, it’s because I just coined it.)  Naming a sports stadium is one thing, but taking ownership of an athlete’s name is a whole new level of sports marketing.  Imagine Brett Farve being offered $$$ to change his name to Brett Fritos for a year, or Donovan McNabb changing his name to Donovan McNike.  Think of the bonuses that could be structured into a deal if your company’s name makes it into the Super Bowl on the back of a quarterback’s jersey…that’s huge! 

This is not limited to football.  All sports will work…just look at Tennis.  Announcers address the players by their last name, and those names get said A LOT.  Pete Sampras going to Pete Samsonite would have been classic back in the day:

“…and Samsonite zips one down the line.”
“Samsonite outlasted the competition today!”

 Of course, the PBN branding could go the other way during a game:

“Samsonite is being shredded at the net today.”
“From the beginning Samsonite looked bad and lost often.” 

The old method of marketing is dead and corporations are trying harder and harder to pry their way into the content itself.  PBNs are one of those entry points that shoots right to the heart of our content.  Invasive – hell yes!  Responsable – hell no! 

This practice will be viewed more like Spam and less like Relationship Marketing.

Is there a big future in PBNs?  What happens if a player is involved in a crime…can the corporation take back their name?  Corporations are losing control of their brand…is this another step in that direction?  There are more questions than answers at this point, so please comment and let me know where you think this is going.