The line between an athlete endorsement and a digital billboard continues to blur, and a company called MOGL is now offering to erase it almost entirely.
MOGL, an athlete influencer marketing platform that emerged during the early days of college athletes' ability to profit from their names, images and likenesses, is introducing what it calls Athlete Paid Social. The feature allows brands to run advertising campaigns directly through athletes' social media accounts, with the athletes' participation reduced to something closer to landlord than spokesman.
Ayden Syal, the company's founder, described the offering as "scaled influencer whitelisting," which is the kind of phrase that makes one grateful for the existence of parentheticals. (Translation: brands can now buy ads that appear to come from athletes, at scale, without having to negotiate individual deals.)
The appeal for marketers, Mr. Syal said, is the combination of an athlete's perceived authenticity with the precision targeting of programmatic advertising. A beta test with ProStyl Sports, a fitness training app, produced a cost per click of 36 cents on Meta-owned platforms, compared with an industry benchmark of $1.50 — numbers that will get the attention of any media buyer who has watched digital advertising costs climb steadily upward.
Athletes who participate receive a percentage of the media spending, creating what MOGL describes as a passive income stream. The advertisements will be labeled as paid partnerships, as required by platform rules, though one imagines the fine print will do less work than the athlete's face.
MOGL, which is based in Los Angeles, now counts more than 30,000 athletes from 1,100 schools and 42 sports on its platform. Brands that have used its services include Toyota, NBC Sports, Applebee's and True Religion — a roster that suggests the company has found traction across categories, if not yet across holding company media desks.
The offering represents another step in the long project of turning influence into inventory.
Original story published in sportsbusinessjournal.com: "MOGL introduces Athlete Paid Social, an AI tool for precise audience targeting through athlete influencers"