In terms of brand strategy, Cricket SA is making a mistake in associating it’s brand with another brand that is obviously unhealthy (nothing more, nothing less), especially since this sport is enjoyed by many children. This is a prime example of the subversive nature of advertising, where a brand like KFC slithers its way into a brand (the Proteas) and into the culture of children (and adults), which promotes sales of the product in the long-run.

The point of this post, which I completely agree with, is that Cricket SA needs to take factors other than money into account when choosing sponsors. Choosing KFC undermines the fundamental core of what the brand stands for - an abuse of the power that it holds.

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You are correct about our players not explicitly endorsing the brands that sponsor them, and I suppose in a way this post is about letting people recognise that…too often we may think that our heroes do fully endorse the companies that sponsor them and we need to recognise that this is not true.

With regards to this being well argued, stimulating and clear — agreed, it’s not quite the best piece of writing I’ve ever done! I’m not really a traditional sports fan, I’m into mountain biking, so I didn’t really want this piece to be the poster piece of cricket on Sports Leader. I just chose cricket as the theme as it was in my head, but this advertising plays across to all sporting codes.

I just had the thought of KFC not being quite the right image for a fitness sport (As opposed to say…darts) In effect I wasn’t able to fully cover the topic myself, and so just added a sort of a spark by this piece, and waited for readers like you to debate it further.

And I think it’s clear by the debate that we’re at least getting more answers! Which I think is great, and it’s great that you’ve contributed to this piece.

That’s the great thing about the comments here, it allows discussion which helps cover these topics more thoroughly, and I suppose this stimulates me to think a little more…and may inadvertently better my writing.

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two, i’m well aware of what journalism is about (without giving too much away, i work as an editor at a political risk consultancy). no piece of writing is a full exposition of the topic at hand. to suppose it ever could be is unrealistic and somewhat ignorant.

notwithstanding, there is no clear division between a blog post and an opinion piece in a broadsheet. whatever the medium, writing should be well-argued, clear and stimulating. so, there are two reasons i responded here. one, i believe the post does none of these; two, i find it depressing that sportsleader covers so little cricket and that when it does, this is what we get.

nevertheless, you are right - you did, inadvertently, get me to engage. i’d encourage you to continue to post here; i’d be interested to see if you can engage me not by default.

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We so blindly buy into brands because we see them advertised often. There aren’t many good brands out there promoting sport, I’m sure most of the clothing manufacturers have workers getting paid poorly. But that’s the point of this — to create awareness amongst people, to just think a little bit before blindly trusting brands.

I know it’s difficult because so few million dollar businesses are really built on sound principles.

In a twisted way, and not by our own fault, we support the Proteas and they promote KFC, which helps continue this cycle of poor treatment of animals. But unfortunately I can’t stop watching cricket just because KFC sponsor my team.

As to your point of this post being uninteresting, the point of blog writing is not to offer a full solution to a topic. This is for magazine writing. Blog writing is meant to engage the reader and let them think and comment, as you have done here. So while it’s uninteresting to you, it has achieved the desired goal of me getting you to offer your insight, which helps the discussion.

And also, I can’t say I can guarantee this, but I nearly can — Next time someone who has read this post sees the KFC logo associated with the Proteas, they will think back to this post.

Instead of just staring aimlessly at the logo and craving some chicken nuggets, they might think differently about the KFC brand in general. They might even bring this blog post up in a discussion at the cricket amongst their friends.

If even one person does this…or even just thinks differently about KFC when watching the cricket…well then I’ve achieved a result and this post has been worth it.

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Sure, it’s nice if the sponsor is a well-intentioned group. But companies’ intentions and moral philosophies are largley irrelevant in the decisions it takes on where to stick up an advertisement. Again, these decisions are commercially informed.

I agree that seeing the Proteas bearing KFC logos is odd; but probably because I’m used to seeing beer makers’ labels.

To finish up, I noticed some time ago that this Sportsleader blog hardly ever covers cricket. So perhaps this post is an effort to up the quota. At least that explanation for publishing it is a somewhat rational one.

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“I am sure if you looked into any big corporate, they probably stock chinese clothes and then you could shout about them being inappropriate”

So true, and we’ve all probably (Well almost definitely) bought those products before.

Not much more to say to that really

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So where does it end really? I am sure if you looked into any big corporate, they probably stock chinese clothes and then you could shout about them being inappropriate. Its tough in the screwed up world to find moral sponsors I reckon.

Rather, as long as the brand pumps money into sport I think the people themselves can decide whether they want to eat the product and condone animal cruelty.

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