A couple of years ago, sports agency powerhouse Wasserman launched an internal division within the company called Athlete Exchange. The premise of the division is to help sports stars evolve their brands into networks of individual media channels. This will assist the athlete in expanding their brands while bringing all the creative services for that branding under one roof in Wasserman. Athlete Exchange is a first-of-its-kind media network exclusively combining talent endorsement, branded content creation, and targeted distribution – all packaged for brands as a guaranteed media buy.
One of the more creative partnerships for the Athlete Exchange division within Wasserman is their client Alex Caruso and men’s grooming product Manscaped. Athlete Exchange primarily served as the production company, collaborating with Manscaped on the script and concept. Wasserman’s talent marketing division put together the partnership for Caruso, and the brand was looking for a production company that had expertise and experience working with athletes. They had to look no further than Athletes Exchange. In the commercial, Caruso can be seen making light of himself using the product while dunking a basketball. The Manscaped spot featuring Caruso won in the branded content category for ‘Use of Comedy’ . This shows the creativity and brand alignment that the Athlete Exchange is producing. Not to mention, the Athlete Exchange does internal cross promotion with their athletes and top brands. For example, leading up to the 2020 NBA Draft, small forward Patrick Williams teamed up with Diana Turasi to promote AT&T 5G network coverage. The AT&T piece featuring Taurasi and Williams won the Telly Award for ‘Visual Effects.’
With the Athlete Exchange, Wasserman will hope to continue to expand brand awareness and partnerships with some of their most notable clients including JuJu Smith Schuster, Amari Cooper, Arik Armstead, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Katie Ledecky, Alex Morgan, Breanna Stewart, to name a few.