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Failed Strategy

Promotion Objectives

Champion was acquired by the Sara Lee Corporation in 1989 and was headed toward the decline stage of their product life cycle when they sold Champion Europe in 2001 because they wanted to focus more on selling their food and household products; thereby losing a good chunk of their resources and capabilities (Rahman, 2020). This meant ending sponsorships with the top sport leagues like the NFL. But they were determined to continue finding sponsorship and partnership opportunities. In 2001, they eventually signed a deal with the XFL (Rahman, 2020). This was their biggest client at the time as they were chosen to be the official outfitter of this brand new and more niche football league (Rahman, 2020), whose target audience was 12- to 24- year old males'' (Drehs, 2001). Based on this information, Champion wanted to stay relevant in the sports industry any way they can while keeping their brand well known to the younger audience. Hence, Champions promotion objectives were to maintain their reputation of being a major sports brand and to build more brand awareness amongst athletes/sports enthusiasts.

Promotion Strategies

Champion has been using the sports sponsorship strategy since the 80s and 90s with sponsoring the winning teams such as the NBA and NFL (Rahman, 2020). So sponsoring the XFL in 2001 was no big deal, however, supporting the league would mean associating their brand with the XFLs brand as well. Compared to the NFL, the XFL was similar to the WWF or now known more as the WWE, in which the games were amped up to emphasize speed, violence and sex appeal, wrapped in a layer of hyperbole (Farhi, 2001). It was basically a low-budget, high-octane football league, that had reviews questioning their legitimacy as a professional league (Drehs, 2001). With this in mind, Champion is risking damaging their brand image due to the perception of audiences about the XFL. Nonetheless, they remained optimistic or at least hopeful the league would become a success and that their sponsorship would continue for future seasons. Afterall, they were required to place very unique nicknames the players chose to put behind their jerseys. These include the infamous HE HATE ME, DEATHBLOW, and BABY BOY'' as shown in Appendix A. It definitely communicates to the young football fans that the brand is still a sports brand, but can also be a fun and entertaining one.

Promotion Tactics

As the chosen outfitter of the XFL, Champions execution (tactics) was mainly through using experiential marketing. This means that Champion could either plan an event where their products would be freely distributed or sponsor an existing event in exchange for free marketing to be a part of the XFL brand. In this case, Champion did the latter and had their logos placed on the uniforms. As seen in Appendix B, their logo has been placed in the upper right corner of the jersey and another one on the upper right corner of the pant. By visibly showing their logo, fans can recognize the Champion brand immediately and know that they are one of the sponsors of the XFL.

Media & Budget

Unfortunately, there was no media Champion used specifically for the XFL that can be found, and this may be because it was not part of the deal with the XFL or they do not want to show any ads that are associated with the XFL after it failed; however, their logo is shown in the various medias the XFL chose to use. Television is one of the main ways the XFL were able to reach a mass audience which means that every time an XFL game is on, the Champion logo will be visible for audiences to see. The XFL also used a rifle strategy that targeted the dedicated and hardcore football fans of the XFL, through their consumer magazine called XFL All Access and football cards as seen in Appendix D and E. Although this type of advertising pertains to the XFL, both media showcase the players in their uniforms with Champions logo on both the jersey and pants; therefore, indirectly giving exposure for the Champion brand to the XFLs target market.

Besides the XFL, they also sponsored for other sports teams such as AC Parma, which is an Italian professional football club, as well as event marketing for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. As shown in Appendix F and G, they did these poster ads in 2001 with the cooperation of an advertising agency in Italy called Bgs Darcy. For the AC Parma ads, it is very minimalistic and the Champion brand can only be seen on the jerseys the men are wearing in the ad. The colour scheme is limited to yellow and black which are the colours of AC Parma and it does let the viewer focus on the uniform itself. According to the description, one is a massager and one is a fan but both have the same thing in common which is supporting the AC Parma team. Since it is a poster, the layout relies heavily on the visual impression, so it makes sense there is no body copy. But, the lack of headlines, subheadlines, or even just their tagline, It takes a little more to make a champion, does make the poster easy to skip or not really pay close attention to by viewers. On the other hand, the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics ad has a subheadline and

In terms of the budget, the Sara Lee Corporation had a year-end media advertising expense of $381 million with a total advertising and promotion expense of $932 million at the end of 2001 (US Securities and Exchange Commissions, 2004). But their branded apparel line which Champion was a part of continued to see a decline in profit as the years went by. It was even stated that the total advertising and promotion expense in 2004 declined by $28 million. Based on this information, it can be assumed that the Sara Lee Corporation allocated most of their budget to selling their food and household items, but when it came to their branded apparel line - more specifically Champion - they used only a portion of their budget on sponsoring sports leagues like the XFL or promoting events such as the 2004 Summer Olympics instead of actually advertising their own clothing brand.

Result

Due to the XFL only lasting one season, as well as the neglect from the Sara Lee Corporation, Champion lost their biggest client that year which caused the organization to lose a lot of money and fire 100 of their employees (Rahman, 2020). This led to Champion manufacturing lower quality products and resorting to selling at department stores such as Walmart and Target to retail advertise their products (Rahman, 2020). Moreover, people started losing interest as the attitudes of the consumers towards Champion products were seen as poor quality and cheap; not only because they were only selling at department stores, but also for associating the brand with the XFL which damaged their brand as the league was seen as a joke and a failure. Henceforth, placing Champion in the decline stage of their product life cycle.