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Andy Gray and Richard Key’s removal from Sky Sports may be last month’s news, but with their return to broadcasting via Talksport radio yesterday, the controversy isn’t quite over yet.
Football is a game of two halves and the boorish behaviour of the footie throwbacks has split those that like to comment on these things straight down the middle. Whether you a firm believer in the right to be able to talk freely, without fear of ‘over-sensitivity’, or a proponent that such sexist behaviour has no place in today’s modern workplace, the chances are your opinion is not for turning.
But what really interests me, is the double standards of the Sky Sports brand, and the sheer audacity by which they virtuously sack Gray and Key’s one minute, yet chose glamorous female ‘presenters’ (and I use the term loosely) who are happy to get their kit off at every opportunity the next. Not to mention the monument to equality that is Sky Sports’ ‘Soccer AM’, where scantily clad women strut around to wool-whistles from adoring fans.
As far as brand management goes, it’s a bit of a mess.
I mean, you expect the Star, for example, to be all T&A, it comes with the territory. On the other hand, if Sian Williams or Bill Turnbull suddenly started appearing half naked on the front of a glossy we’d all be terribly shocked. It’s just not how we expect (or want) our BBC Breakfast presenters to behave. Sky Sports, in my opinion, needs to pick a side.
Branding is about far more than your company logo. Brand protection goes beyond trademarking your name and securing your domain. Your brand is the first thing people associate with your business, making it of the upmost importance. It needs protection. It needs to be looked after carefully. It doesn’t need your brand ambassadors debasing it, on or off camera, and running your good name.
That said, it may be shoddy brand management, but wouldn’t you know they are getting away with it. For now at least. Indeed a recent PR Week poll showed that although 71% of respondents believed football to be institutionally sexist, a whopping 78% said they did not believe Sky Sport was.
Do me a favour, love.
