Who was the big product-endorsement winner at Kona?

Triathlon Forum
1

I say Zipp. There was a lot of discussion on-line durng the Ironmanlive.com webcast about the use of deep section wheels such as Zipp 808 and 606. Zipp seemed to be placed on a lot of athletes that got camera time. Good for them. It is a bit odd they missed the boast with Faris Al Sultan considering some Cannondale models (Faris is a Cannondale athlete) use Zipp wheels. You’d think the marketing/placement guys would have closed the loop better there.

Good day for Cannondale too.

But for Zipp, the flag flew very high on the pole for most of the day.

2

I think that Argon 18 should see a bump thanks to Torbjorn.

3

Cervelo- another huge winner- #1 in the bike count. That really says much more than what the pros are riding. It shows what real people are buying.

4

How bout Tri-Dubai. They had stuff everywhere and on everyone.

5

Absolutely. They are the new “Team J. David”. am waiting for them to close the loop by having a killer race in Dubai U.A.E.

I will be there to cover it in grand style. I love the middle east.

6

Good comments, Tom.

An interesting discussion point considering we are in somewhat of a reveloution with regards to how this event is covered.

Historically, the way it’s worked is that athlets have received a bonus of some sort based on performance or exposure through magazine shots - a very limited opportunity. Real live coverage of the kind we had on Saturday of IMH changes the game a bit and I suspect will change the way companies think about sponsoring athletes who may be up there and competitive at IMH or other triathlon events that have this sort of coverage.

The reality is that there was very little commercial support from advertisers for the “show” - the only ads I saw where for eTrade and Toursim Hawaii. It will be interesting to see what companies who are interested in this market will do now that they have this great opportunity.

Fleck

7

I agree. They are a good company with nice product too. This is the beginning- now they have to follow-on with good product placement throughout the season in the media.