Just (get paid to) do it
Fake fans swooshing with pride, keeping Nike happy
Posted: Monday January 25, 1999 11:23 AM
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Mary Pierce says she doesn't mind the fans placed in the stands by Nike AP |
MELBOURNE (Reuters) -- Whenever Andre Agassi takes to the court at the Australian Open, Melbourne university student Mark Yarnall puts on the American's latest shirt and cheers himself hoarse from the stands.
When Mary Pierce plays, he and his mates don blonde wigs and bright yellow dresses.
The spectators love them. The photographers snap away happily. And their employer is laughing all the way to the bank.
It's all part of the latest marketing trick dreamed up by U.S. sportswear giant Nike: employing phony fans.
The ploy has been in full use at this year's Australian Open where groups of young students have been seen at matches parading the same Nike outfits that Agassi, Pierce and young Australian Lleyton Hewitt are wearing on court below.
Former Australian Open winner Pierce said she knew her "fans" were fake but did not seem to mind.
"It's an idea of Nike to get some publicity and encourage me, it doesn't bother me at all," she said.
Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee said he was aware that Nike was using the technique but he himself disapproved of the phony fans.
"I love to see fans dressing up and supporting the game but I don't like it when it's contrived," McNamee told Reuters on Monday.
"Nike is an official sponsor of the Australian Open but as far as the tournament is concerned, we are in no way involved with orchestrating player support."
Nike spokeswoman Megan Ryan defended the tactic. "It's just a bit of light-hearted fun. It's part of our objective to add colour and atmosphere to the Aussie Open," Ryan said.
"It's been very successful. The players seem to like it-- and if they didn't we wouldn't do it."
The tactic of planting supporters in the grandstands appears to have been a stroke of genius for Nike over this past week with the enormous free publicity it has generated.
Pierce's look-alike fan club, in particular, have been the most talked-about-- and photographed -- group of spectators at the championships.
The Frenchwoman, who won the title in Melbourne in 1995, even makes a point of being photographed with her professional "fan club."
Hewitt, a 17-year-old who shot up the rankings last year after beating Agassi en route to a precocious tournament victory, appeared less impressed. He was asked last week whether the fans wearing the same white back-to-front baseball cap as he does were friends of his.
"No, I think Nike put them there," he said.
The group sits in the same place every day, positioned in the official players' seats on the Melbourne Park center court so they can be easily spotted by the television cameras.
They make themselves even more visible by standing up and singing to the crowd at each change of ends. It is a trick that has worked well as their images are broadcast around the world.
Asked whether she could not change her dress because of the fans, Pierce replied: "If I come out in black, they'll come out in black too."
The group is made up of local university students. Some of them are also working at Nike's clothing booth at the Melbourne Park complex.
Yarnall, 24, said most did the same thing for Nike last year. "It's good fun, we quite enjoy it," he said.
Nike is one of the most successfully marketed companies in the world, with recently-retired basketball superstar Michael Jordan its main sporting property. But its aggressive tactics have often upset its rivals.
Although it was not an official sponsor of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Nike enjoyed enormous success by running promotions and signposting near the main stadiums.
It also used the same ploy, decried by rivals as ambush marketing, at other major sporting events around the world.
Most fans at the Australian Open said they did not know that the chanting supporters they see in the stands each day were in fact fakes.
"I don't think it's right," 19-year-old Adam Carpenter said when told about it. "We had to pay a lot of money to come and watch the tennis and it's sad to think that some of the fans aren't real."
Canada-born Pierce said she enjoyed vocal support in France as well as Melbourne, but without the cross-dressing.
"In France, guys don't wear dresses. I haven't seen that yet," she said.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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