美國《TIME》探討運動品牌與代言人的關係

品牌找明星做代言人絕對不是新鮮事，例如最近美國說唱歌手 Drake 就正式加盟 Jordan Brand，成為品牌最新的代言人，而早前 Kanye West 亦離開了服務多年的 Nike，轉投其競爭對手 adidas 旗下，成為大眾談論的話題。這種互為互利的關係由從前到現在都非常值得探討，日前美國時代雜誌就刊登了一篇名為《The Measure of a Hip-Hop Star? It’s on Your Feet》的文章，由作者 Victor Luckerson 從多個例子中與讀者剖析這種現象，以下為文章的節錄部份，完整內容請登上 TIME 瀏覽。

Some celebrity shoes have been both commercial and marketing successes in the past. When Jay Z released his S. Carter sneaker line in 2003 through Reebok, it became the fastest selling shoe ever for the company. But it can be challenging for celebrities to create a line that has the year-after-year success of athlete-branded shoes. Powell says the S. Carter line declined in popularity after its initial hype, and he can see the same happening to a mass-produced Kanye shoe. “It will be interesting whether Adidas maintains the same kind of control over the quantities,” he says. “My gut is if they made a lot of Kanye West shoes, they’re going to find that the demand goes way down.”