“Fine” Marketing: Reggie Bush and Adidas August 17, 2006
Posted by TimTheFoolMan in Football, Humor, Morality, Sports, Stupidity.trackback
If you’re a fan of American Football, it’s hard to have missed Reggie Bush’s performance in last weekend’s preseason game against the Tennessee Titans. Beyond some deft moves on the field, Bush demonstrated that his marketing team is just as agile at dodging NFL marketing rules as he is at dodging would-be tacklers.
By wearing cleats that show a logo other than Nike or Reebok, Reggie Bush has violated one of the most important rules in the NFL: Thou shalt not market brands outside of our established relationships.
Unfortunately for the NFL, Nike, and Reebok, anything that happens from this point forward will result in a windfall of publicity for Adidas line of football gear. This is an effective “checkmate” by Bush’s marketing team. There is no response by any of these three parties that will do anything except give Adidas more (extremely inexpensive) market visibility.
As a bonus, the situation highlights the NFL’s lack of action against players who are convicted of domestic abuse, repeat substance abusers, and demonstrably incapable of dealing with the financial success that sports have afforded them. The harder the league comes down on Bush and Adidas (without taking even stronger action against those guilty of more serious crimes than taking money out of Nike/Reebok/NFL-marketing-team-kickback-recipients hands), the more incompetent they will be shown to be.
Perhaps a Master Card spoof is in order?
Adidas Football Cleats: $49-99
Fine for wearing “unauthorized” brand cleats in an NFL preseason game: $10,000
Making the marketing deparments of Nike, Reebok, and the National Football League look like morons while giving your fledgling brand of football gear unprecedented exposure: Priceless
A Fool and his Words are Soon Parted 
Do you know the name of the cleats and if they are available for public purchase? Thanks!
Nike did the same thing with Michael. I think its great!
[…] abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, theft, and a variety of other criminal behavior. However, as with Reggie Bush’s unbelievable choice of cleats, they draw the line at churches using the publicly stated Christian faith of Tony Dungy […]