MAKORI: Kenyan marketers should support our stars

Over the last few years, Global Sports Communication (GSC), a Netherlands-based athlete and sports management concern, has raised the bar in marketing.

From its Nijmegen base close to the German border, GSC has spent unlimited time and resources embracing innovation in sport, distance running in particular, while pushing their athletes to vantage positions in product endorsement.

Led by 1975 Dutch sportsman of the year and 10,000 metres national champion Jos Hermens, GSC boasts of having nurtured the careers of the world’s finest athletes. Through guidance from some of the world’s best coaches, including Kenya’s Patrick Sang and Ethiopian-born Dutchman Getaneh Tessema, the GSC stable has groomed the likes of Ethiopia’s superstar trio of Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele and Almaz Ayana, along with Kenya’s marathon superman Eliud Kipchoge.

GSC’s Kenyan camp in Kaptagat also boasts of multiple world half marathon and cross country champion Geoffrey Kamworor, who is also the defending New York Marathon champion, and middle distance star Augustine Choge, who will graduate to the full marathon in Chicago this Sunday.

Choge will be in good company at “Windy City” on Sunday as his GSC team-mates Abel Kirui, a two-time world marathon champion, and Geoffrey Kirui, the reigning world champion and 2017 Boston Marathon winner, are also in the mix.

Diamond League double champion in the jumps, Caterine Ibuargen of Colombia, is also among GSC’s elite squad in field events with Kenya’s Olympic 1,500 metres champion Faith Chepng’etich topping the middle-distance roster and Florence Kiplagat, a former world half marathon record holder who will also line up in Chicago as a late entry this weekend, among the stellar road running cast.

Botswana sprinter Isaac Makwala is also managed from GSC’s Nijmegen headquarters. That Hermens and GSC have been able to create a niche for each of their star athletes could make for a perfect manual in athlete management.

About two years ago, GSC, keen on raising its profile and competitiveness on the road racing circuit, started the NN Running Club from where the company’s distance runners launch their assault on numerous global road races and marathons.

The NN Running Team is an outfit that draws together about 60 athletes from 15 countries running under sponsorship from Nationale Nederlanden, a Dutch firm that specializes in retirement services, insurance, investment and banking.

Through the global successes of the NN Running Team, Nationale Nederlanden continues to enjoy prominence and increased brand loyalty that comes with such association.

The executives at Nationale Nederlanden, led by chairman and CEO Lard Friese, have no regrets.

It was, therefore, good to see Isuzu East Africa also come on board and sign up Kipchoge as their brand ambassador, eventually rewarding him with an Isuzu D-Max double cab they had promised if he broke the world marathon record, which he did in convincing fashion at the Berlin Marathon on September 16.

Sadly, not many Kenyan corporates have embraced our athletes to push their brands, these stars’ global triumphs notwithstanding.

Other than Betin (Mcdonald Mariga), Kiwi (David Rudisha), Orange (Julius Yego), SportPesa (Fatuma Zarika), Bank of Africa (Edna Kiplagat) and, to some extent Milo (Ezekiel Kemboi), little comes to mind in terms of sustained, local marketing and brand promotion through Kenya’s sporting icons.

Just like Nationale Nederlanden, Isuzu East Africa, along with US sports apparel manufacturer Nike, will not regret their association with Kipchoge. After falling 25 seconds short of breaking the two-hour marathon barrier on the Monza Formula One race-track last year, Kipchoge triggered mass demand of the Nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite running shoe which he wore in the brave attempt, with the limited stocks zooming off the shelves.

Equally, managing director Rita Kaveshe and her Isuzu East Africa team on Mombasa road are rubbing their hands with glee as they will most certainly note a difference in sales figures of the D-Max through their association with Kipchoge, with the superstar’s admirers, especially in the North Rift, seeking to jump onto the brand and bandwagon.

This is a route we hope to see other corporates take.

Sadly, our streets are inundated with billboards of nondescripts models wearing broad smiles after pocketing a pittance from blinkered marketing executives who, apparently, have scant regard for our world-beating stars. Yet abroad, our athletes are celebrated with television commercials and endless marketing tours fittingly appreciating their world-beating performances.

It would be encouraging to see local concerns backing not just our elite stars, but also the amateur running clubs that have mushroomed across the country, especially in Nairobi, as a way of promoting healthy living.

It’s interesting to note that over 20 amateur Kenyan runners will travel to Chicago this week to run in the Chicago Marathon, with another group destined for the New York Marathon on November 4.

Running clubs such as Urban Swaras, Kitengela Mbuni Runners, Hash Harriers, etc, could do with local corporate sponsorship as they juggle fitness and professional engagements. Besides running to keep fit and challenge the global circuit, these “fun” runners also provide welcome moral support to the elite athletes, as will be the case this weekend in Chicago and next month on the streets of New York.