Brita’s Stephen Curry sponsorship splash

Brita’s Stephen Curry sponsorship splash is set in the U.S. water filtration industry in the first nine months of 2016. The case study documents the initial period of market-leader Brita’s sponsorship of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors’ point guard Stephen Curry. Curry was regarded as one of the greatest basketball shooters of all time, had recently won his second Most Valuable Player (MVP) award from the NBA League, and was ranked as the ninth most powerful celebrity endorser in the United States. Although the announcement of the sponsorship deal had generated substantial and positive media reaction, sales of Brita products were still declining nine months into the period of the sponsorship deal, after several years of sluggish growth. By August 2016, Brita had experienced a 7.2 percent annual decline in total sales, including its well-known water pitchers and filters.



The case documents the communication activities related to the Curry sponsorship undertaken by Brita’s Director of Marketing, Tad Kittredge, during 2016. Given the pressure to deliver weekly sales and the regular NBA season scheduled to begin in just three weeks’ time, Kittredge needed to find a way to use the Curry sponsorship to contribute to a sales turnaround in the coming months. The case offers four strategic alternatives that Kittredge was considering in October 2016 to change the way Brita used Curry.