Don’t worry, Boris Johnson hasn’t called a snap Olympics!  The Games in question are the inaugural Youth Olympic Games which are currently taking place in Singapore, and which represent a long-awaited dream of Jaques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, who has always wanted to create a global sporting event for young people.

The Games kicked off on 14 August with an elaborate Opening Ceremony, after which around 3,600 athletes between 14-18 years of age will be participating in 12 days of competition across the 26 summer Olympic sports.

Team GB has sent a team of 40 athletes to Singapore, including some individuals who are already hugely experienced at global sporting events, such as Tom Daley, the World and European Champion diver, who is a strong GB medal hope for London 2012.  For other team members, the experience of Singapore will be crucial to their development, especially for those with longer term goals such as Rio 2016.

With no precedent for this event, the organisation and build-up was always going to attract varying levels of interest and, as is often the case with the Olympic Games, the cost of hosting the event is one of the major elements that has been scrutinised. The original budget submitted to the IOC of $90m has already been exceeded three-fold, with the current figure standing at around $270m.

Sponsorship is another area where difficulties have been experienced.  Again, because this is a new event there is no precedent for sponsors to work from – no history of viewers or interest (although it is anticipated that there will be around 370,000 spectators) – therefore, the Games were seen as a risk for all involved and the Organising Committee has had to work hard to secure the required investment.  As it stands today, the Games have attracted 68 Marketing Partners – 11 Worldwide Olympic Partners (including Coca-Cola, Visa and P&G), 9 Official Partners (including Deloitte and Singapore Airlines), 16 Official Sponsors (including Volvo and SingPost) and 32 Official Supporters.

Total revenue generated from the sponsors has been estimated at 60m Singapore Dollars, however, many of the brands became involved on a 100% value in kind basis, seeing them offer their goods and services to the Organising Committee to help deliver of the Games, in return for marketing rights.

The final verdict on whether these Games have been a success won’t be known until all the marketing intelligence and data is collated. Regardless of this, China has already recognised the potential of the newest addition to the IOC events calendar, with Nanjing winning the bid to host the event in 2014 – a decision that was made by the IOC in February this year.

If you want to catch some of the action you can view live it live on the IOC website or highlights on BBC iPlayer.

By Sara Wilson on August 18th, 2010

Tags: Athletics, BBC, BOA, Default, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Sponsorship, Team GB

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The stand-out performer on the track at this week’s World Athletics Championships in Berlin has of course been the astonishing Usain Bolt. Off the track, his sponsors Puma have also demolished the opposition in the marketing contest (albeit that Puma had little to beat, given the complete lack of activation by the various event sponsors) with a funny, savvy, multi-platform campaign which is right up there with anything produced by the category titans, adidas and Nike.

The inspiration for the campaign was gifted to Puma:  the fact that fans and the media incessantly request that Bolt reprise his trademark ’arms pointing skyward’ pose from the Beijing Olympics wherever he goes. Puma’s inspired twist? A ’solution’ to the problem, developed after ‘a year of research and development’, in the shape of strap-on foam ‘Bolt Arms’.

“From now on, they do the pose”, says Bolt, at a fake but cleverly-rendered press conference included in a number of virals released as part of the Puma campaign, which is notable for its integrated use of social media platforms.

Cue from there a blitz of experiential activity in Berlin, including mass distribution of the Arms to fans, leading to an inevitable decision by the IAAF (sports equipment sponsor: adidas) to ban fans from wearing ‘Bolt Arms’ in the stadium – prompting Puma to ask fans via Twitter if anyone managed to sneak them inside, which they clearly did judging by numerous TV crowd shots.

All in all an exemplary case study, and to my mind a contender for campaign of the year.

By Tim Crow on August 21st, 2009

Tags: Ambush campaign, Athletics, Beijing 2008, Default, Digital marketing, Viral Marketing

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At Synergy, while we work exclusively on the brand and sponsor-side of the industry, we still frequently receive unsolicited requests for sponsorship from hopeful individuals looking for funding to achieve their goals. One such enthusiastic sponsor-seeking individual caught my eye last week, fielding a rather unusual campaign.

Last October world pole-vault silver medallist Romain Mesnil suffered a disappointing withdrawal of sponsorship from his backer, Nike. In an attempt to gain awareness for his sponsorship proposal, the Frenchman stripped off, and jogged through Paris with, er, pole in hand, and posted the final video on his personal website. In one afternoon, Mesnil had whipped up nearly 300,000 views.

Viral heaven. Within hours the video clip, hosted on YouTube, had gone global. Media outlets and news wires all over Europe could not get enough of the naked French athlete who was prepared to do whatever it took to make potential sponsors sit up and take note. Well, they certainly couldn’t doubt his genuine enthusiasm and dedication, nor his athletic prowess.

Mesnil followed up the stunt a couple of days later with a slightly less controversial approach by launching a ten-day attempt to get sponsors via the French version of the eBay online auction website. After the buzz that his naked jog created throughout the industry and the media, he told a French news conference that he planned to offer sponsorship deals of himself through the online auction site to the highest bidder. Those who click onto his website can place a bid to sponsor the athlete with any profits going to a brain tumour research group.

A rather novel approach to rights fee negotiation, but hats off to him for fully embracing Sponsorship 2.0 in order to achieve, well, ultimate exposure.

In recent weeks, Mesnil has also sported a black kit with a big white question mark where the sponsor’s logo would normally be. When asked about his whole campaign by the press, Mesnil’s response was remarkably astute:

‘In times of crisis, you have to come up with a novel approach.’

How particularly relevant to the current times, and how very, very true.

By Lucie Bartlett on April 6th, 2009

Tags: Athletics, Public relations, Social Media, Sponsorship, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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Following on from Ciaran’s post a few weeks back revealing that brands were missing out on the SEO opportunities around the Olympics, Alan Long of Hitwise Asia Pacific just posted some really interesting related research about UK consumers’ online behaviour during the Games, which reveals some surprising results about the most searched for local and international athletes.

The top 20 most searched for Olympic athletes in the UK, ranked by share of traffic in the category, can be seen in the table below:

No surprises that the two new truly global stars created by Beijing, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, top the list.

But you could, I suspect, have got very good odds on the top 20 featuring only ten Brits, only four of Team GB’s 19 gold medallists, four gymnasts (three of them American), three tennis players and two Brazilian footballers!

By Tim Crow on September 3rd, 2008

Tags: Athletics, Beijing 2008, Digital marketing, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Team GB

2 comments

There’s not much you can do in 0.028 seconds.

Am sure it takes me significantly longer than that to blink for a start. But for one athlete, that was the difference between reaching her eighth Olympics Games and staying at home next month. Which is sadly where she will be having just missed out on Olympic selection, in what must be her last opportunity at the impressive age of 48. No spring chicken in the world of sprinting. Seven Olympics down, training for her eighth. Sir Steve Redgrave stand aside, this woman means business.

Anyone who like me, used to devour athletics on TV as a young kid in the 1980s, will recall the name Merlene Ottey. The Jamaican-born sprinter is ranked 4th on the list of all time female athletes in the 100m, and 3rd in the 200m rankings. She was always up there on the podium, the Jamaican anthem playing loudly. Well that is until she switched allegiance away from her Caribbean roots (don’t get me started on that subject…choose your country and stick to it in my opinion, however…) Changing her nationality followed a number of controversial years for Ottey in which she fell out with the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) against team selection disputes and fought to clear her name of suspected anabolic steroid use, charges that she was cleared of in 2000.

2002 was the year Ottey adopted a new country and began to represent her new home of Slovenia, training under Slovenian coach Srdjan Djordjevic. Then it was the Slovenian anthem that would belt out in athletics stadiums around the world. If you ever want to learn more about national anthems, note that Slovenian’s is taken from the 7th stanza of the poem ‘A Toast’ written by France Prešeren in 1844. No idea how the actual tune goes, less reggae undertones than Jamaica’s I imagine.

I digress.

Along with Swedish fencer Kirstin Palm, Ottey is the only woman to have competed at seven Olympic Games; her Olympic career commencing in Moscow in 1980. In five World Championships, she has won 13 medals (three gold, four silver and six bronze medals). In the Olympics, she has won two silver and five bronze medals; more Olympic medals than any other athlete from the Western Hemisphere. Not forgetting being the first female Caribbean athlete to win an Olympic medal. That was pre-Slovenia days mind. In her impressive medal collection, only an Olympic gold medal eludes her.

Call me sentimental but it would have been inspiring to witness Merlene run in Beijing – even had she not qualified for the semi final stages in the sprint events, a feat she succeeded in doing at the age of 44 in Athens. Perhaps I’m feeling particularly sentimental this month having personally witnessed the drama that unfolded at Royal Birkdale when Greg Norman, at the age of 53, threatened to claim one of the least expected sporting victories ever and take home the Claret Jug as Open Champion for a third time. A tournament he last won in 1993. Sadly for Norman, like Ottey, there was to be no fairytale ending in 2008 but regardless I applaud them both for their sheer grit and determination, physical excellence and the ability to (very nearly) defiantly roll back their glory years.

(Ottey failed by 0.028 seconds to reach her eighth Olympic Games, aged 48 in 2008).

By Stephanie Branston on July 29th, 2008

Tags: Athletics, Golf, Olympics

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By Georgina Spring on July 23rd, 2008

Tags: Athletics, London 2012, Olympics, Sponsorship

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