Escola Universitària d’Enginyeria Tècnica de Telecomunicació La Salle Final Thesis Graduate in Management of Business and Technology Discovering Athlete Brand DNA with Generation Z Student Promoter Víctor Cortés Solé Christopher Kennett ACTA DE L'EXAMEN DEL TREBALL FI DE GRAU Meeting of the evaluating panel on this day, the student: D. Víctor Cortés Solé Presented their final thesis on the following subject: Discovering Athlete Brand DNA with Generation Z At the end of the presentation and upon answering the questions of the members of the panel, this thesis was awarded the following grade: Barcelona, MEMBER OF THE PANEL MEMBER OF THE PANEL PRESIDENT OF THE PANEL Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to my promoter, Christopher Kennett, for his guidance, dedication, time and support during all this time on this project. I would also like to thank all the people that participated in the project, specially to Francesc Valdivieso, Xavier Lucas and all the participants of the focus groups. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and help during all this time. I would also like to thank Salle University and its professors for the education I have been able to receive. 1 Abstract This thesis proposes a new model for the personal brands of the different athletes with those adaptations necessary to maximize visibility and income for new generations, specifically, with the "Generation Z". The study contains a literature review which tries to understand the current models that follow the personal marks of athletes to understand the necessary points for improvement. Another objective was to obtain the maximum information from the "Generation Z" in order to adapt it to the proposed model. To be able to develop the new personal brand model for athletes to obtain maximum visibility and income of the "Generation Z" people, have been developed different focus groups with participants belonging to the "Generation Z" to obtain information and opinion about different athletes and their personal brands and also through interviews with relevant people for the project to know the opinion of different professionals. All this has made it possible to propose a new model for the personal branding for athletes with the aim of people belonging to "Generation Z". 2 Executive Summary The aim of this thesis is to propose a new model for the personal brand of athletes adapted to the new demands that the generation has and that influence when they consume anything. This generation will change many things that were established until now or that on the contrary had not been raised. For this reason, there is a need to propose a new model that maximizes the visualization and income of athletes. In order to develop the thesis, it has first been necessary to gather information on how the current models of the personal brands of athletes work and how they evolve. Also, to know the general tendencies that those belonging to the "Z generation" can have. After that, in order to know even more deeply, different methods were carried out to know the opinion of people belonging to the "Z generation" about different sportsmen and their personal brands in order to know which are the important points specifically for them and the points for improvement. The other method used were interviews with relevant people for the thesis who could give their personal and professional opinion about the current models and the future to be even more accurate and close information. Once we had all that information, a new model is described with similar and improved aspects of the current models but also completely new points that until now had not been evaluated due to the requirements up to now had. a new model is described with similar and improved aspects of the current models but also completely new points that until now had not been evaluated due to the requirements up to now had. 3 Table of contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 1 Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 2 Executive Summary .................................................................................................... 3 Table of contents ......................................................................................................... 4 List of Tables and Figures .......................................................................................... 5 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 6 2. Research Question and Objectives ................................................................. 7 3. Literature Review ............................................................................................ 8 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 8 3.2 How do athletes become brands? ........................................................... 9 3.3 How is brand value measured? ............................................................. 10 3.4 What do recent studies tell us about branding athletes? ........................ 11 3.5 What we know about the changing nature of generation Z fans and how they perceive brand values of an athlete? ............................................. 12 4. Methodology .................................................................................................. 13 4.1 Qualitative Research ............................................................................ 13 4.1.1 Focus Groups ................................................................ 13 4.1.2 Interviews ..................................................................... 15 5. Data Analysis ................................................................................................. 16 5.1 Scorecards ........................................................................................... 18 5.2 Scorecards Analysis ............................................................................. 30 6. Proposed Model ............................................................................................. 31 7. Conclusions .................................................................................................... 37 8. Bibliography .................................................................................................. 39 9. Appendix ........................................................................................................ 43 Appendix A .......................................................................................... 43 Appendix B .......................................................................................... 48 Appendix C .......................................................................................... 52 Appendix D .......................................................................................... 56 Appendix E .......................................................................................... 61 Appendix F .......................................................................................... 65 Appendix G .......................................................................................... 67 8.690 words 4 List of Tables and Figures Figures Figure 1: Proposed Model……………………………………………………………31 Tables Table 1: Aggregate value top 10 brands in each category versus stocks……………...8 Table 2: Social Networks Athletes…………………………………………………...10 Table 3: Definitions of athlete brand image dimension……………………………11 Table 4: Cristiano Ronaldo Scorecard………………………………………………..18 Table 5: Leo Messi Scorecard………………………………………………………..19 Table 6: Ivan Rakitic Scorecard…………………………...…………..……………..20 Table 7: Neymar Jr Scorecard………………………………………………………..21 Table 8: Ander Herrera Scorecard…………………………….……………………..22 Table 9: Garbiñe Muguruza Scorecard………………………..……………………..23 Table 10: Mireia Belmonte Scorecard……………………………………...………..24 Table 11: Ona Carbonell Scorecard………………………………………...………..25 Table 12: Fernando Alonso Scorecard…………………………………...…………..26 Table 13: Rafa Nadal Scorecard……………………………………………………..27 Table 14: Pau Gasol Scorecard………………………………………………..……..28 Table 15: Marc Marquez Scorecard……………………………………...…………..29 5 1. Introduction In recent years, sport and everything that involves sport has grown a lot economically, that according to a recent A.T. Kearney study it achieves a value of €450 billion. But according to Mike Ozanian, Forbes (2017), one of the areas that has grown less than the others, which is the personal branding of athletes. Considering the fast growth and dramatic changes that have occurred in the sports industry, there is a need to consider new models for the personal branding of athletes that is aligned with a new generation of fans. The study will focus on Generation Z as the next generation of sports fans that represent a change from their predecessors, the (late) Millennials. With the study of the current models of the athletes' personal brands and the possible modifications adapted to the requirements of the "Z generation" a model will be proposed to maximize the visibility and income of the athletes. My passion for sport, and the interest I have in the professional representation of players and how athletes sell their personal brands to try to promote their image and the products and brands with which they are related, have been the reasons for choosing