Mike Ditka, Who Turned "Da Bears" Into a Lifestyle Brand, Has Died at 86

Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end and head coach who built the Chicago Bears into America's most quotable football team, died Friday at 86. NFL coaches moved quickly to mark the loss: the Detroit Lions' Dan Campbell offered that his "thoughts and prayers go out to his family," while current Bears coach Ben Johnson called Ditka "the gold standard" for the franchise he once ran.

Ditka's death also closes out one of sports' stranger advertising runs. In 2004, he spent roughly six months as the scowling face of Levitra, the erectile dysfunction drug jointly marketed by Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline, before stepping away from the deal on his own terms. The brand pivoted to softer messaging shortly after, trading the mustache for "an attractive 40-ish woman," which is its own small case study in how fast a campaign can decide its mascot has become the message.

That was the trick with Ditka: he never fought the caricature. SNL's "Bill Swerski's Superfans" sketches turned his gruffness into a Chicago in-joke that ran for years, and rather than distance himself from it, he let it become shorthand for the whole city's football obsession. Most brands spend fortunes trying to manufacture that kind of affectionate parody. Ditka just showed up as himself and let Chicago do the rest.

Source: Washington Post

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →