Picture a Super Bowl victory without the traditional Gatorade bath for the winning coach. That iconic image may fade as PepsiCo‘s chairman and CEO has publicly urged the National Football League‘s leadership to immediately create policies around child abuse and domestic violence.
Indra Nooyi, who leads one of the league’s longtime sponsors, said in a statement that the NFL must “seize the moment” and has a chance to “effect positive change with the situation presented to them.”
This, of course, is in response to two very public instances of player misconduct currently sullying the NFL’s public image: Ray Rice’s recorded violence against his now-wife Janay Palmer in an elevator, and Minnesota Vikings Adrian Peterson’s looming felony child abuse charges.
(Nooyi’s comments come not long after another NFL sponsor – Anheuser-Busch – said it was “disappointed and increasingly concerned” by recent incidents and was not yet satisfied with the league’s response. The beer maker spends an estimated $50 million with the league every year).
Nooyi’s public comments evoke those of Air Canada in 2011. Air Canada has a significant investment with several NHL teams, and used its sponsorship budget as a whip to drive change in the sport (and, incidentally, protect its own image as an advertiser investing in that sport).
You may remember when Boston’s Zdeno Chara checked Montreal’s Max Pacioretty into a partition (pictured above), sparking a public debate about violence in hockey.
“From a corporate social responsibility standpoint, it is becoming increasingly difficult to associate our brand with sports events which could lead to serious and irresponsible accidents,” wrote Denis Vandal, Air Canada’s director of marketing and communications, in a letter to the NHL. “Action must be taken by the NHL before we are encountered with a fatality. Unless the NHL takes immediate action with serious suspension to the players in question to curtail these life-threatening injuries, Air Canada will withdraw its sponsorship of hockey.”
Nooyi’s statements aren’t quite so dire. Her comments are being portrayed as supportive of the NFL as she said she believes football commissioner Roger Goodell will “do the right thing for the league.” And it is in Nooyi’s business interest that Goodell do so, as there is a huge benefit to seeing Gatorade’s colourful splash on the sports page every year.
But if forced to make the best of a bad situation, will anyone blame Nooyi for turning her back on that tradition to stand with victims of violence on the other side of this public debate?
(Although, as my colleague Kristin Laird points out, maybe there’s better branding to be found with its MLB sponsorship, as this new ad suggests).
