Well, marketing dollars don’t always have a 1:1 increase in cost to the consumer. In theory if you increase sales and can increase economies of scale by selling more products, you can actually increase profit without increasing price at all.
Of course that assumes the sponsorship/endorsement pays off in increased exposure and sales. Looking at his major endorsements, the ones that confuse me most are Kaiser Permanente and JP Morgan. But these days Young Men are a VERY difficult demographic to reach. They (I guess I can’t count myself as “young” anymore) really only watch TV for live sporting events. So a company that wants to reach young men isn’t crazy to make a deal with a popular young star.
Of course, Nutella found out what happens when your endorsee has off-the-court trouble with Kobe. Then again, everyone seems to have forgotten about Kobe’s incident, perhaps because in the end he wasn’t convicted.
