Source: SYDNEY MCLAUGHLIN SIGNS WITH TEAM NEW BALANCE
In a dope presentation of support on Broadway, NB displayed their latest addition to the family.
McLaughlin joins New Balance after a stellar freshman year at University of Kentucky, where she won the 2018 NCAA Outdoor 400m hurdles title, set a world junior record over 400m indoors with a time of 50.36, and set both World Junior and NCAA records for the intermediate hurdles event with a 52.75 clocking, the fastest time in the world in 2018.
As performance footwear continues to take a slide in sales, it may seem like a stretch to begin building a roster of athletes when casual footwear is seemingly driving growth. That would be a fallacy.
Sydney is marketable for a number of reasons, but what has to be understood is that marketing is shifting. Right now adspend on influencers is encountering a lot of pushback as social media and entertainers tend to create only temporary bumps in interest. Influencers in particular are troublesome as many of the followers are paid for and the interactions on posts can’t be measured with certainty.
What New Balance understands and has been building for a while is a stable of athletes who carry significant reach with their audiences. If I ask who is an entertainer signed to New Balance, it would be hard to quickly answer that question. There are countless MLB athletes signed to the brand and the track and field roster is solid. Those athletes are turning themselves into media companies via YouTube and IG. Their followers are a lot more responsive and as the athletes share pictures and videos of their daily lives they wear the casual athletic attire that will be seen and potentially purchased.
The 19 year old has 298,000 IG followers and over 17000 followers on Facebook. She attends a Nike school and NB was able to pull an incredible athlete from the Swoosh early and it will pay dividends as 2019 qualifiers begin. It’s a smart move by NB.
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