Samsung and Olympics with sports 2.0

As i continue to explore the various brands which are involve in the Olympics and are the TOP partners, and how they leverage their brands to maximize their sponsorship with the Olympics.

Today, I’ll be looking at how Samsung has been maximizing their sponsorship with the Olympics.

They extended their sponsorship last year all the way through to 2016 and have been TOP since 1997. Thats one longggg sponsorship if u ask me, but worth every damn cent.

So what’re the efforts they’re doing this year? How are they gonna leverage their brand with the Olympics, not only as an event but by aligning their brand values with the largest sporting event in the world?

Seems like Samsung has been doing some regional work. Which i think is better than just leveraging a mass brand appeal with the Olympics. Different regions require a localized marketing effort to fully promote the Olympics with your brand!

So, let’s start with Asia.

In India, they’ve organized the ‘Samsung Olympics Game Quest 2008″ for school children. The regions involved in this competition include Mumbai, Kolkata, Banglaore and Dehli. In addition to this effort to promote the Olympics, they’re also offering sponsorships to student athletes. Talk about being a global brand with a strong recognition and association to sports!

In Singapore, Samsung has tied up with Discovery Channel to showcase a 2 hour special of the Ultimate Olympics Special and other programs which are related to China. It’s almost as if it’s following Visa’s example of promoting the country as well! Promoting the country as a brand is significant for the country hosting the Olympics. It serves to benefit every1 if such partnerships were fully utilized to increase the exposure of the event to the masses.

I’m sure other regions have their own individual efforts but I wouldn’t dwell into them. So let’s move on to product launches and Brand ambassadors.

Of course, the whole point of a sponsorship is to not only increase brand awareness but to utilize the event as a platform to promote your new products. So Samsung has launched 3 phones to tie in with launch of the event. And they actually did it a year b4? This is where I wonder if the launch was too soon and should have been delayed by 2 quarters to have a nice build up to the height of the games… But i’m guessing they must have their reasons…

Lastly, whats an event sponsorship without having some super athlete to hold your product and look good. Endorsements are vital and although using celebrity endorsements are very well argued here and here, I’m trying to think of Samsung’s rationale for choosing Liu Xuan as its 2008 Beijing Olympic ambassador?

So it isn’t just simply putting your brand as a TOP to get brand awareness, a lot more work has to be done after securing the partnership… Which makes one wonder if Lenovo’s idea to sponsor the Olympics to this year was really a good idea despite its claims to focus on different regions… I’m guessing costing.

Sadly, I haven’t been able to find any form of web 2.0 efforts by Samsung… Facebook groups with 50 ppl or less don’t count… I mean, for a mobile company, with the rise of smart phones, there should have been some kind of marketing effort to use social media as another medium…

SAMSUNG HAS NO SPORTS 2.0?? I mean c’mon… considering the number of Facebook groups asking brands to boycott the Olympics this year, surely some kind of reputation management must be done online? Is Samsung really avoiding the truth?

I think Samsung has done a great job in the traditional channels, but failed to utalize the growing mediums of web2.0 and digital media to enhance and really max out their sponsorship….  What do you think? Or have you come across any online or web2.0 efforts by them?

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