Mesut Özil is the new Mercedes-Benz Ambassador
With more than 30 million fans on Facebook and more than 11 million followers on Twitter, Mesut Özil is the “social media king” in Germany.
In September 2013, with around €50 million paid by FC Arsenal, he also became the most expensive player in German football history. Only three months before that, Mesut Özil was the first German footballer who reached the magic number of 10 Million fans on Facebook.
Of course, football skills are the main reason why clubs are deciding to spend millions on one player, but number of social media followers can significantly increase the transfer fee.
“For Ozil it’s interesting because he only wants to form partnerships with a couple of brands that align with his personal interests,” – Misha Sher, MediaCom’s head of sport and entertainment
million Facebook fans
million Twitter followers
Both Facebook and Twitter accounts were very personal from the start of Mesut’s social media appearance. Exactly what fans like and appreciate. There are also some posts dedicated to his sponsors, but those are shown as a part of his private life and Hobbies.
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Mesut Ozil, Manuel Neuer star in a new Mercedes ad with the German national team.
#Vivelemanschaft
What I like the most are Q/A sessions on Twitter, #AskMesut, which can be a great way to increase fan engagement. All questions can’t be answered, but 26 thousand retweets for one answer…Not bad at all!
According to Brandtix, Mesut Özil is, with more than 50 million fans on social networks, the most valuable Premier League football player.
Even though he has a huge marketing potential and also a huge number of advertisement offers, it is well known that Mesut Özil is only interested in representing brands that show his personal interests. He wants that the brands he represents are shown as a part of his real life.
Mesut’s latest deal with Mercedes Benz is a great example of how marketing relationship between famous brands and athletes should work.
As can be expected, premium brands like Mercedes-Benz are very careful when choosing their brand ambassadors. There should be no mistake, and the person chosen for this role should represent every bit of brand’s mission and vision.
Why Mesut Özil? Not only because of his 50 million social media fans, but because he is known as car enthusiast and already owns two Mercedes-Benz models.
As a brand ambassador he will not only pose in front of the new car, he will test it, use it in real life and become a real opinion maker.
Conclusion
For big brands finding a right brand ambassador is a big challenge. What they should always think about is that the person they choose is trustworthy – customers should trust whoever a brand chooses as an ambassador. He/she should be an opinion maker and a person who will be ready to answer any customer questions, because he is using the product or a service every day.
Choosing athletes based only on the number of social media followers and popularity can lead to huge failure.
The same is with the athletes, who should make sure that they are using the products and services which they promote in their real life.
Fans hate “plastic” social media posts and they will stop following athletes if they realize they are using them only to monetize their popularity.
Marin Varvodic
Overtime Sports Marketing
If you have any questions about sports marketing, feel free to contact me at marin.varvodic@gmail.com
