The first thing I noticed on arrival at Wembley was the smell.  The second thing I noticed and the bane of my bank holiday weekend was the fact the inner workings of the stadium are a labyrinth; complete with secret doorways and lifts that lead to everywhere you don’t want to go.   Amazingly the 90,000 capacity stadium can be evacuated in twelve minutes which shows that the labyrinth design works, not only if you have a PhD in quantum physics but also in emergencies.  This was the second year the Coca-Cola Football League Play-Offs have been staged at the new stadium and as a ‘Play-Offs virgin’ I got to see what a great event it is for the first time.  193,885 fans travelling thousands of miles to watch their team try and grasp promotion in the final game of the season. 

Burnley v Sheffield United

The majority of Coca-Cola’s experiential activity this year was focused on Olympic Way; the route from the tube to the stadium.  Fans had the chance to receive a video message via Bluetooth from their team’s manager (which they could then download from Coke Zone), and also a message telling them about Coke’s other activity – the Coca-Cola Fan Cam.  At the Fan Cam marquees, fans could record a message of support for their club, the best of which were shown on the big screen at half time. To reward the fans who couldn’t make it to Wembley a Coca-Cola TV advert was created for each day of the Play-Offs.  The ads (which were shown before kick-off on Sky Sports each day), featured the relevant team’s fans describing what their clubs mean to them.   I believe this is an advertising first. 

Some fantastic goals were scored over the weekend, particularly in the League 1 game between Millwall and Scunthorpe.  The best part of the weekend was having the opportunity to walk onto the pitch at the end of each game to hand the winners their ‘We’re Going Up’ t-shirts.  After working so hard for 90 minutes in 90°F, and indeed working hard all season, it was great to see the elation on the faces of the players. 

At the end of each day it was back to the hotel and it’s extraordinary clientele – the cast of Britain’s Got Talent, whose shrieking in the hotel bar was certainly on a par with the smell of the Wembley Stadium plumbing.  Overall it was a fantastic experience, a scorching weekend and some great memories that will stay with me forever (providing I don’t spend any more time in a bar with the Football League!).

By Erica Hodges on June 2nd, 2009

Tags: Advertising, Branded content, Event management consultants, Experiential marketing, Football, Football Sponsorship, Media, Mobile, Sponsorship, Synergy, Television

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Last week saw two bad-news stories break on Olympic sponsorship by the automotive industry.

First was the news that the IOC had ended its long search for a global Olympic sponsor in the automotive category, exclusively scooped by Around The Rings. The only thing that was surprising about this story was that it took the IOC so long to go public on it.

This followed hard on the heels of General Motors – a major domestic sponsor of Vancouver 2010 - announcing that it was closing 245 dealerships in Canada in the run-up to today’s filing for bankruptcy protection, which unsurprisingly led to speculation in Canada that GM would not be able to meet its commitments to the Vancouver winter games - claims strenuously denied by VANOC.

Will the post-recessionary automotive industry be prepared to fuel each Games’  habitual Games-time requirement for thousands of vehicles? (VANOC’s fleet requirement from GM, for example, is 4,600 vehicles, a not untypical figure, on top of which GM is also paying $14m in cash.)

Unless there’s a major overhaul both of the package of rights on offer by the Olympic Movement and of the approach of auto sector brands to this type of sponsorship, we doubt it.

We’re yet to see any evidence that previous Olympic sponsorships by automotive companies have justified the investment – and this reported statement by VANOC Deputy CEO Dave Cobb, commenting on the GM situation, perhaps partly explains why:

“Not sure we were expecting that much promotional activity at a dealer level, the sponsorship is with the corporate entity and not the dealerships themselves.”

By Tim Crow on June 1st, 2009

Tags: Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship consultants, Vancouver 2010

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Isn’t it always the way: you wait a lifetime to see a film in 3D about a hero named Bolt, and then two come along in a matter of months. Granted one was the John Travolta-voiced Disney blockbuster, whilst the other was footage of the all-conquering Olympian Usain Bolt smashing another world record at the Bupa Great City Games in Manchester this year. But it begs the question of just how many befuddled 6 year-olds out there thought they were off to see their favourite animated canine star, only for an altogether different eponymous hero to come bursting through the cinema screen.

In fact, this raises an interesting topic for the cinema-going public in 2009: how many more 3D films are we going to be expected to see? Bolt (both cute dog and sprint God) seemed to work; similarly Monsters vs Aliens made use of the third dimension, albeit, according to fans, slightly less successfully. Then Coraline, the new animation from Henry Selick, whilst a critically-acclaimed film, gains little more than a bit of textural richness with the addition of 3D specs. And don’t even get me started on Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience…

Are we seriously heading for Scorsese in 3D? Would a ‘remastered’ Withnail and I really offer a better experience if the audience felt every drunken lurch from Richard E Grant? And just how many geological eras will have to pass before Terence Malick gets round to pulling out the third dimensional stops?

With the advent of Avatar, James Cameron’s CGI magnum opus – widely tipped to be the most expensive film ever made – we might see a big screen production to truly make use of that extra ‘D’, though I guess the point is just because we can go beyond 2D, doesn’t mean we always have to – it should be something that feels worthwhile and relevant.

However, this is where the mighty cinema industry might disagree with me.

From the early 1980s, when VHS emerged victorious from the home video format wars, film piracy had become a reality for the major studios. Then the ‘90s brought DVD, and with it the potential for lossless data duplication. Coupled with faster, cheaper PCs, offering massive, inexpensive data storage, the widespread availability of DVD authoring software and the geometric growth of both the internet and home broadband capabilities – not to mention that feller in my local with the carrier bag full of iffy films – the piracy situation begins to look understandably grim.

Star Wars Episode III, Casino Royale, The Hulk, and most recently X-Men Origins: Wolverine – every one a $100+ million production – have all been circulated online prior to their official release. And once a film is in the public domain, things only get worse. With a host of questionable websites allowing web users free access to streamed (though largely crackling, jerky and unwatchable) movies, Hollywood needs a solution. Reading between the lines the studios’ answer seems to be to fight tech with tech: if you can’t pirate a ‘3D experience’, then you’ll have to go to the cinema, won’t you?

Well, according to at least one well-informed, well-respected (not to mention well-coiffed) critic – no. Mark Kermode’s POV – worth watching just for the clip of the unfinished cut of Wolverine that surfaced online – revolves around the question of the changing landscape of film.

In short, cinema might be the medium of choice for the all-encapsulating visceral movie experience, but the internet has offered a genuine alternative in the home – what the film industry needs to do is offer its wares to the right people, at the right time, crucially, in the right place. Oh, and stop green-lighting Alien vs Predator spin-offs.

By Jonathan Izzard on June 1st, 2009

Tags: Blogging, Default, Film, Media, The Arts, YouTube

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That perennial dinner party favourite – “what is a sport?” – popped up over the barbie this weekend with some interesting twists based around the fact that although this is not an Olympic year, it is nonetheless a big year for the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee. 

In addition to the IOC vote in October that will decide which of Rio, Madrid, Chicago or Tokyo will host the 2016 Games, there is also the small matter of which sports should be included. The IOC is due to vote “en bloc” on the 26 summer sports and can add a further two sports if it so chooses, from a candidate list of seven.

Separately, the IOC has discussed a number of objectives concerning the “refreshment” of its offer, which, summarised, mean it is trying to save money, keep the number of athletes down to 10,000, not trash the environment and make sure it includes something to excite the youngsters.

But why vote en bloc for the 26 sports already included, when some of them are quite obviously not sports? At least, not by my 3-point definition which goes like this:

First, a sport is something you can win empirically, without the aid of a judge and without there being any doubt. The opposition has to feel properly beaten. True to the original Olympic ideal of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (faster, higher, stronger) this immediately culls elegant pastimes like gymnastics and diving, thus reducing the host city’s bills and also cutting the number of athletes to more manageable levels. A subset of this rule is that anything synchronised is not a sport not only because it is not winnable, but also because it is just wrong.

Most people respond with “what about boxing?” at this point, to which my answer is simple: fight until one boxer can fight no more. Then you know who won. Alternatively adopt fencing’s model where “hits” count for points but take away the subjective element by following fencing’s example of fitting electrodes that light up when a hit is made. Heaps of fun.

Secondly, a sport must result in human sweat. The Olympics does OK at this, though I see golf on the list of candidate sports, which while doubtless skillful, is not really exercise and therefore, not a sport. It’s also terminally dull, which goes against the IOC’s stated intent to liven up the Games and attract a younger crowd.

Third, machinery is out. Humans have to do the work. Under this definition, motor-sports are not sports. I appreciate this may not be my best career move, but within the boundaries of an Olympic conversation, I think it acceptable. But what about equestrian sports? Clearly the horse does the work here. Sorry horsey types; no Olympics for you. Again, this saves huge amounts of money and solves logistical issues regarding the difficulty of transporting animals across quarantine borders.

By following these simple rules, we all know what a sport is, we create an Olympic Games that is tightly defined, obviously winnable, much more affordable and which results in a more useable legacy.

By Scott Garrett on June 1st, 2009

Tags: Default

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