What may be best for you – sign a contract to get a superstar an official endorser of your brand, or count on the ordinary people to spread the good rumour around? The answer, as obvious as it may seem, is never so clear.

With the recent Olympic hype, let me take a couple of examples from this huge event of the year.

Nike were set to a heavy position when their competitor Adidas were taken as the official sponsor of the Games. Their obvious way around, of course, was to use the athletes they are sponsoring as the official endorsers of the brand. One of the most important figures that Nike gave credit to was Liu Xiang, the “best Chinese track-and-field athlete ever”, as Nike’s manager had put it. Not to put the athlete’s skills and prominence to doubt, but he lost his race this time, without showing any spark. It is up to Nike to calculate the outcome of this failure, but obviously, they lost on this sponsorship, at least during these two weeks.

Let us now take a woman, who has hardly been known to public before the 2nd week of the Games started. This story from USA TODAY has caught my attention, so here I pass it further. Debbie Phelps is a loyal customer of Chico’s, selling clothes targeting at baby-boomers. I am sure the Chico’s people would have never expected anything from this lady. But, see, her son had to beat a outstanding record to bring his mom on to public. Guess what she was wearing. Every time she was on TV or print, Chico’s had free exposures to the world.

“Customers have been coming in and asking for what she’s wearing,” the Brand President Michele Cloutier said.

Of course, Debbie Phelps is not an ordinary person any more, but I believe she used to be one not so long ago. And no one could imagine her as a possible powerful brand advocate just a month ago… Now, there she is, not as good as her sponsored son, but good enough to pay attention…

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