The power of charisma

Let's be honest. In the world of sports, who's winning doesn't matter if people doesn't like you. If you don't believe me just ask the Orlando's Magic. Their journey throught the NBA finals has been just unfair.



Being the non-favorites since the semi-finals, and running against the highly favorites Cavaliers, these guys have played really hard to get just one game away from their first finals in quite a while. Regardless, the world of marketing doesn't seem to be aligned with the surprising turnaround of this series. Orlando is up 3 games vs. 2 and at least two big sports brands (Nike and Vitamin Water) have gone public with advertising campaigns that promotes a potential match up between Cav's James and Lakers' Bryan. Simply put, they are just ignoring the Magics. Of course, these have clearly expressed their discomfort against those predictions and claim that the media do not respect them, but in the meantime the campaigns are sill up.



The lesson here, give people what they want and forget about who's up. See, what the Magics don't understand is that those marketers know that if LeBron and Kobe do not go to the finals both viewership and engagement, most likely, will drop. That's why they rather to leverage on what really matters to people: LeBron vs. Kobe and give it to them, now.

These guys are sport celebrities and most people, whether fans are not, have been waiting to see them playing since the season started last year so really, who cares about the Magics or the Nuggets?

Congrats to to those brands that see opportunity beyond the context!