After South African Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius was charged in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, Nike pulled an internet ad from 2007 which referred to Pistorius as “the bullet in the chamber” and confirmed that they have no plans to use him in future ads.  Oakley, another Pistorius sponsor, suspended their contract with the troubled track star.

This was just the latest in a string of celebrity athlete endorsers whose images have been tarnished by scandal. Tiger Woods, Michael Vick, Lance Armstrong – and that’s just for Nike! As I watched the sad story of the death of Reeva Steenkamp unfold on the news, I began thinking about what it means to have an athlete endorse a brand and how that brand is affected when the endorsement goes awry.

For a brand like Nike, I don’t think it means much either way.  Here’s why.

Endorsements are par for the course for athletic apparel brands. The natural choices for these roles are athletes who are the best, the most inspiring, the flashiest or the most personable. We follow their careers and look up to them, even call them heroes. We EXPECT to see these figures in Nike ads. The Air Jordan effect aside, do these endorsements actually make an impact on sales? I suspected not, and my suspicion was reinforced by this article stating that “with rare exception, celebrity endorsements were largely ineffective and failed to yield the benefits popular wisdom promises.”

Ok, so maybe using celebrity athletes in advertising doesn’t do much to move the sales needle for a brand like Nike, but surely, you say, it must be detrimental when the endorser falls from their pedestal. I still say no.

We live in a fast-paced media environment, with a 24-hour news cycle and constant turnover of social media content.  Just when we’ve begun to digest a story, we’re ushered on to the next big scandal, and that other story becomes yesterday’s news. So we move on and start to forget, and maybe even forgive. It may not always be possible to forgive the athlete, but we can certainly forgive the brand.  After all, Nike couldn’t foresee what would happen with Pistorius.  They reacted appropriately, and that may be what matters most, from a PR standpoint anyway.

Of course, it helps to have a great product.  Nike is my running shoe of choice; I have tried other brands and nothing feels as good.  I will buy a pair of Nike running shoes regardless of how they look, because I know I can rack up the miles in comfort. I love their running apparel because it feels good and looks cool. I couldn’t tell you who, if anyone, is endorsing Nike’s women’s running gear. Even if I knew, it would have little impact on my purchasing decision. As for Tiger, Lance, Oscar and Michael? I don’t want anything to do with these guys, but that doesn’t affect how I feel about Nike.

So what does it all mean?

I don’t think that the days of brands using athletes and celebrities as endorsers is coming to an end any time soon. I do, however, think that people are starting to realize that we have to look for heroes in different places, including within ourselves. Brands that recognize that and give us products that empower us to be our own heroes will be in a position to do well, no matter what scandal is next in the news cycle. – Sarah