GE and the Olympics

Moving on to the 2nd last TOP on the list of the TOP Olympics marketing efforts, we have GE!!

GE is the exclusive provider of a wide range of innovative products and services that are integral to a successful Games. From providing power, lighting, security and modular space solutions at Olympic venues to supplying ultrasound and MRI equipment to help doctors treat athletes, GE works closely with the Organising Committees, local municipalities and other Olympic Partners to understand their needs and then deliver solutions that only GE can. NBC Universal, a division of GE, is the exclusive US media partner of the Games. The GE and NBC Universal partnerships extend through 2012.

Now what kind of marketing efforts would a company like GE have?

1)They have a green theme of “Ecomagination” for a marketing campaign. Basically showcasing all their green initiatives to reduce the carbon emission of various places. By using their technology on the Bird’s nest and the water cube, GE has solidified its position in China through these examples and earned a neat 600 Million dollar revenue. They plan to further push their green initiatives during the Shanghai world expo and the Guangzhou Asian games.

2) They launched various commercials to be part of the “green Olympics” initiative set by Beijing. Here’s the link for the ads.

3) They’ve also chosen an interesting medium to market their message. They have interactive ads on 1000 taxis in Beijing being displayed on a small screen in the cab for passengers. You can read more about it here.

4) As mentioned earlier, NBC, part of the GE umbrella are the exclusive US media partner. This Olympics marks the transition of NBC shifting their video coverage to online. Whats more, there’re showcasing thousands of hours of film previously not shown in games. This is to cater to the niche groups who are more interested in certain sports. There’s the long tail theory working for u!

That seems to be about GE’s efforts for the Olympics. You can check out their homepage for more details.

Now, since they’ve committed themselves to reducing the carbon emission and going on a green theme (Certainly not a case of green washing), wouldn’t it be great if they could involve the ppl as well?

I’m thinking Facebook groups to encourage greener initiatives. Wikis to generate more green solutions.They have a healthcare blog, but what about one for the “ecomagination”? I’m guessing social media here might not be a huge consideraton cause its gonna be a lot of B2B marcomms going on. However, if their intiative can spur ppl on to make the change, then it might make demnad greater!

So while i admire their green intiative, interesting ads and mediums to push these ads, it would have been nice to invovle the ppl who ultimately use their service.

Omega and the Olympics

Moving down the list of TOP Olympics, we have Omega of The Swatch Group Ltd. Omega is the official Time piece (for example, watches, clocks and official countdown clocks), timing systems/services, and electronic timing, scoring and scoreboard systems and services for the games.

So as the offical timekeeper for the games, what are some of their marketing efforts?

1) From online mediums, they have this flash animation scroll thingy which traces the history of Omega and China. Further, it also traces bits and pieces of the Olympic history.

While slightly cliche, it does bring some interesting facts from the past to today’s generation who are too engrossed with Michael Phelp’s 8th gold medal. Things like the “Flying Housewife” and the “Czech Locomotive” are great stuff to know from the past century.

You’ll probably see some of these in the shops selling Omega watches as well being displayed…

Sadly, this site is solely one-sided with little interaction or use of social media…. Would be great if they could have included other great moments in the Games voted by the ppl, which Omega was there to capture the winning timings…

2) What’s a brand without an ambassador? You can check out the list of ambassadors they have here, heck, they’ve been sponsoring Phelp’s since 2004, good shot at that one considering how his market value is going up.

Even James Bond is one of ‘em, lol….

3) Lastly, like most brands in the Olympic Green, they have a pavilion built which showcases their watches and other neat stuff. Read more about it here.

It’s a pretty normal marketing campaign considering the amount pumped in but i guess they should know what they’re doing since they’ve been doing it since 1932.

Would like to see a heavier usage of social media considering the history they have with the games and how they could connect with the people then.

Another thing I would like to share is how Olympics can help a country as a brand and you can read more about that from this article here. What’s most important i think in an Olympic sponsorship is that it not only helps a brand being a TOP, the brand must also help the country. This would allow the brand to have a stronger association wit that particular year’s games and build its brand presence in the host country.

ManuLife and the Olympics

Today’s TOP Olympics really doesn’t interest me, but I thought I’ll just take a look. Yup, today I’ll be looking at Manulife, the official life insurance partner of the Olympics. See how interesting this sounds already? I really don’t have much interest for financial companies’ marketing, but let’s just take a look shall we?

So what’re some of their marketing efforts for this game?

1) They’ve started a campaign called “Bringing dreams to life”, with a concept of “real people, real dreams”. Here’s the core message of the campaign as abstracted from a press release.

Its core message is that, just as the Olympic Games can make the dreams of nations, sports fans and athletes come true, so the insurer, with its wide range of products designed to bring financial security and peace of mind, can help ordinary people achieve what they most wish for in life.

Hey, real interesting huh? Whichever boring uncreative agency tot up of this must have really been in a rush or having a really anal client, this is soooo boring…

Right, since this was the core message selected, wouldn’t the best medium used be social media rather than traditional print ads and TVCs?

Its all about the people right, their dreams being achieved with a peace of mind? Why not do it the way one of the airline companies did it by mashing up a bunch of short video clips on how good the airline was. But in this case, just what ppl’s dreams are and how which financial plan helped them. Now there’s a medium to consider when doing your media plan.

Look at this ad below, the core message is so week in it really annoys me…

2) Of course there’re other efforts, the norm of sponsoring outstanding athletes. ( The Malaysian branch sponsored a fencing athlete, who’s the son of a Manulife employee….)

3) Lastly, you can check out their Olympic website then… Too corporate with little interaction…

While I understand that financial institutions need to maintain a professional image (i prefer to call it stuffy necktie image) and that there’s a fine balance in any marketing campaign for them not to go overboard and ruin that image. However, when it comes to sports sponsorship, cant they just let down their hair?

Maybe have that “Bringing dreams to Life” campaign with 2 phases. The early part which utilizes social media, making it more relaxed, fun and not so uptight. The 2nd phase can be where you break down how your products can help your clients.

I just feel so much more can be done with this 55-60 million dollar sponsorship. Does any1 else feel their efforts are insufficient? Or as a financial institution, this is the best they have done?

Visa and the Olympics

Moving on the list for TOP Olympics marketing efforts is Visa.

Visa International is the exclusive payment card and the official payment system for the Olympic Games. But what’s so impressive about Visa is that their Olympics marketing efforts have been made a Harvard case study. With a great pre, during and post programs with the host country for the Olympics, Visa has not only managed to leverage its brand with the games, but also with the host merchants who would choose Visa as a preferred choice of payment.

Right, to put things into perspective, u can see some numbers for the various host cities and how Visa’s marketing programs with these host cities has helped to boost tourism in the country.

So what has Visa done this year for the most hyped up Olympics so far?

1) On a global scale, Visa launched its “Go World” campaign, which is meant to stress global harmony over nationalistic pride.

There’s a micro site which shares the stories of fans and athletes from the past Olympics. In addition, check out the commercial which has Morgan Freeman (I like to call him God, lol) saying “We don’t always agree. But for a few shining weeks we set it all aside.”

Done by TBWA, this campaign brings out the emotional aspect of the Games while trying to link it back with the brand. You can check out the micro site here.

What’s great is how fans can share their own stories, which really makes this campaign more social and more memorable for the fans when its something they can relate to.

2) Like i always say, what’s brand without its ambassadors. And who better than the 2 biggest Chinese faces to bring out Visa during this year’s Olympics? Jackie Chan and Yao Ming of course! Check out the ad below done by BBDO.

3) Visa also has its own regional efforts which i applaud. Setting a prime example of a sporting event sponsorship, Visa has ‘win a trip a day’ promotion to encourage users to use their Visas while getting a chance to go to the Olympics. (Taking promotional management marketing next sem so i’m kindda looking out for this, haha).

Standard promotion and you can read more about it here.

There are definetly more B2B marketing promotions involved behind the scenes with financial institutions, merchants and the government and IOC, which i shall not dwell more into. Visa is a strong beliver in its Olympics sponsorship and has done well to fully maximize, not only its brand name, but also its usage among partners. Kudos to one of the success stories in sports marketing!

I’ll be covering more of the sponsors at a faster pace. But on a lighter note, John Davis (my sports marketing prof) has released his new book titled “The Olympic Games Effect”. You can read more about it here.This book covers how brands have used the Olympics to leverage their brand and will be a good read for those interested in what I’ve been blogging about for the past few days. Looking forward to this read!

Kodak and the Olympics

Next of on the list (marketing efforts) for the TOP Olympics is Kodak!

Kodak is the offical film and imaging sponsor for the Olympics and has been so for the past 20 odd years. The company announced last year that they were pulling the plug for the Olympics sponsorship.

Some of their efforts this year has been very web2.0, rather than showing the medal tally count and the stats, they will be showcasing the fans experience in words and in pictures!

1) They have a blog which will showcase Jenny Cisney, chief blogger, experience at the Olympics. In addition, it will also cover Richard Mackson, a former sports illustrator photographer who will share photo tips and tricks

2) Picture of the day

3) More can be read here

While the company has been facing a decline due to the digital age, and facing heavy costings to move from film to digital, it got me wondering if such a move was a wise one. To pull out sponsoring an event that would reach an estimated audience of 4 billion.

Then i came across this article, stating that the Beijing Olympics was unlike the rest of the Olympics. And i begin to see why it might be a good move to stop the sponsorship after the this year’s Olympics when compared to the 2012 London Olympics.

1) China has an immature consumer market

2) Pride of China hosting the games makes brand leveraging with the event easier

3) Strict government laws (for once it might be good) on ambush marketing which might not have been possible in other countries

4) ta hao guan xi ( building good relationships) with the government officials being an integral part of doing business

5) Shift in consumer behavior (and i quote from that article)

Instead, marketers will have to weigh whether there are more cost-effective ways to reach consumers and leverage Olympic enthusiasm without having to pay the high price. Frank Vial, strategy director of branding agency Landor Associates, argues that in a world that’s moving toward targeted marketing, “maybe the Olympics will have to reinvent itself as something other than a global, monolithic brand.”

So while some might doubt the wisdom of Lenovo and Kodak pulling the plug, i can begin to see why the ROI for such a sponsorship in the winter 2010 and summer 2012 games might not be as effective as this year’s Beijing Olympics.

Its gonna be hard to measure the ROI for such a sponsorship which is highly costly, but now i ask myself, “Are the brands pulling out because of a change in consumer behavior towards sponsorships?”

or like the article abstract i mentioned,

“Does the Olympics have to reinvent its brand to appeal to a new generation?”

What are your thoughts? Please do share!

MacDonald’s and the Olympics

Moving on to my 3rd TOP for the Olympics and checking out what their marketing efforts are with relation to the Olympics, today’s TOP is MacDonald!! Everyone’s favorite Golden arch!!

Its pretty ironic how a fast food outlet is actually the official restaurant for the Olympics. But they really leveraged the sponsorship using digital media.

They’ve come up with a campaign called The Lost Ring which has been running from 29th Feb to Aug, an alternate reality game which traces the history of the Olympics which was apparently forgotten.6 lost athletes from the another era trying to uncover that lost history and u’ll be helping them out.

There’s a wiki which is a beginner’s guide to the game, a Youtube video (below) for the trailer and there’s also a historian called Eli Hunt who has a blog page with pod casts who helps you along the way.

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me, they’re really expanding this campaign across all channels in the digital media scene. Since this campaign has been running across a span of 6 months already, i wonder what the response has been. And i’m guessing its really costly to maintain a campaign like this.

How’s their outreach been? Did it serve its purpose? This would be a really great case study for sports marketing using digital media. Who else but them would’ve had the money, hahaha…

Of course, what’s a sponsorship without a brand ambassador. McDonald’s has chosen Danny Robinson, BMX athlete. Faceofglory.com is the website that will be used to push the brand name through the new brand ambassador for this Olympics, with a small gimmick of photo editing to put your face on various sports athlete’s positions.Not too sure if it was the best way to use him, would’ve done a little more with that endorsement… Something to tie in with either the lost ring campaign or a mini campaign to see how Macs fits into his life…

There’s also been a pretty cool internal branding effort called the MacDonald Olympic Championship Crew, which you can read more about here. And this article is a pretty comprehensive overview of what Macs has done so far for this Olympics and its strong stance against ambush marketing. Do have a read if u wanna know more about macs efforts.

While its encouraging to see Macs really using social media and digital media to leverage its Olympic Sponsorship, I’m hoping to see some results of this campaign.

However, all i’ve seen so dar have been global efforts. Unlike Lenovo who has regional efforts, Macs seem to have focused on a broader approach without tailoring to a certain region.

Which got me thinking. To leverage your sporting sponsorship, is it better to have a global approach or a regional tailored approach? After all, sports events like the Olympics is what binds the world together, yet does each marketing campaign mean leveraging sports that it should be global? or a regional effort is still the way to go?

What are your views? Or do you know of any regional efforts by Macs for this Olympics? Do share your thoughts!

Mobile and the Olympics

So before i carry on looking at the marketing efforts of the TOP for the Olympics after they’ve paid the huge sum to put their name under the TOP list. I wanted to share some ‘should know’ stuff i pulled together for using the mobile as a medium and how it has been integrated with this year’s Olympics.

The main reasons why i think mobile is a great medium for sports fans is the fact that its a medium which is “on the go”. It connects sports fans closer to their sports without having to GO TO a television, newspaper or desktop. While the Olympic committee grapples with this new medium, its fascinating to know that fans now bring the event with them rather than going to the event.

3 other reasons why i think mobile is THE MEDIUM for sports fans to be linked with

1) Live score updates are great when using your mobile (Trust me, i didn’t know Spain won the euro’08 till i checked my phone)
2) Watching the game on your mobile is pretty neat, although this is still prevalent in Korea and Japan.
3)Aggregated articles of sports that u care about, to read on the go and yet keep u updated without missing out the vital bits of sports news that u want to know.

ReadWrtieWeb has done an excellent article, which i must trackback, on how the mobile has integrated itself into the Olympics.

Which of course brings me to the examples of which brands are currently using the mobile.

Let’s start with Yahoo!.

Check out their homepage on their mobile for the Olympics. Pretty neat page with the countdown timer, medal count, reviews by sports analysts etc. But what’s so cool is how they’ve integrated this with the web. A more in depth coverage can be found on its webpage for the Olympics. As you can see from there, Chevy is already on of the advertisers which Yahoo! has managed to attract.

It’s interesting to see how a company has integrated sports into their brands and how it has attracted advertisers. This, compared to Google mobile whereby you have to customize your own Olympics page, kindda sucks… I mean, Google could’ve at least put in more effort for the Olympics…

Moving on, we have Fring.

Fring, a Voip and IM mobile company has been launched the interesting idea of writing the event through blogs to encourage users to be sports citizen journalists. I’m wondering if this is now limited to using social networking on the mobile only or on the web to blog about the events.

I’ve heard of companies asking users to blog about a product, service or event. But to tie this in with mobiel and sports is pretty cool! This is off their blog entry on this initiative:

We will happily provide the fring Olympics commentators with a 3.5G mobile phone with GPS, camera, local SIM card and (almost) unlimited data plan. In return, the fringCommentator will regularly micro-blog with quick updates & pictures (the winner, the loser, the cutest flag-bearer, the poor girl who lost her swimsuit, the poor guy who dropped the baton in the 4×100 meter final… you get the idea). If you’re a real sports enthusiast you may focus more on the records; if you’re more of a night owl, we may all live vicariously through your night-time escapades in the Olympic village – pics & videos most welcome!

Will be keeping a close tap on that 1, wondereded if they actually found any1 just before the games too!

There’re others like MobiTV providing video coverage of the games on Mobile, Plusmo with their mobile Olympic apps are prtty neat too…

To wrap things up, we’ve seen how mobile can be integrated into the games and why it is such an ideal platform for using it as a sports marketing tool. It’s great for advertisers to reach out to users who wanna be kept on the go about their sports events.

However, i agree with this article for my 3 wishes and the Olympics.

1) Text to cheer

2) Athlete’s bio on mobile

3) Olympic Trivia Contests

I would also like to add in a 4th wish whereby we can keep track of our local atheletes rather than the celebrity athelete of the sports. Kindda having a locaized version just to keep us updated on how our country’s sportmen and women are doing this Olympics. Just a micro site within the mobile web page would be nice enough.

So there you have it. Any other brands u know using the mobile to reach out to their consumers? Any interesting campagins you care to share? Or do u disagree that mobile will be a vital medium and that traditional media is still the way to reach out to fans and for advertisers to continue using that as the main platform? Share you thoughts!!

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?

Olympics and Lenovo with Sports 2.0

The Olympics is gonna be starting next week! We’re talking about the largest sporting spectacle the world has to witness and how it has come to China this year.

China has had its fair share of controversies with regards to the Tibet issue and Carrfour and France…. It’s also shown how internet as a medium has been restricted by the government and how users have found ways to go around these restrictions. There was the earthquake which showed the China government could be transparent and wasn’t totally inflexible.  I talked more about it here in my post on Citizen Journalism and its works in China. In fact, Rebecca MacKinnon, former Beijing Bureau Chief of CNN who now teaches digital journalism at Hong Kong University. shares some journalism tips when using the internet as a medium.

Now with the background all laid out for China 2008, the Olympics will prove to be the next story board in China as a brand. Hopefully no political issues will be dragged into this sporting event to mar it as another event filled with political debates.

What i want to emphasize is the brands who are participating in the Olympics. I wouldn’t be covering China as a brand itself, I’ll have to wait for the end of the year to have a good overview of how China has fared.

What is great about this Olympics is the use of social media. Let me bring your attention to Lenovo. A China brand which owns IBM’s laptops has propelled themselves into the sports marketing scene. With sponsorships in the NBA, F1 BMW and now the Olympics, Lenovo has positioned itself to be the technology to use to capture the best in the sporting industry. Pretty slick move considering the various stigmas haunting ‘made in china’ brands. Read more about the Olympic athletes blogging here.

But what’s great about Lenovo has been its use of social media in the sporting industry. Just recently, the Olympic council has allowed the athletes to blog about their experiences. This was banned in previous Olympics, also showing how the Olympics are embracing social media and its increasing importance in today’s world. Lenovo understands this and supports the use of blogging for athletes by providing them with a laptop each to blog about their daily experiences.

What’s so great about blogging by athletes is that it allows your favorite athletes to share what goes through their minds during those critical moments. I mean, take a step back and think, sports allure is how the athletes attract people to watch them play, i mean throw in the fact that you get a personal diary note on his/her blog rather than a set up interview, doesn’t that just kick ass? Great product placment for your brand too! IIn the words of Shamus McGillicuddy,

In the world of sports, there are two things that fans obsess over: the games and the statistics that surround those games.

And what better blend than special media and sports to get this across. Kindda like eggs and bacon, salt and pepper, Mark and Remzy, ya get the idea…

I’m gonna be taking a look at other brands over the next few weeks to see what efforts are they doing as we approach closer to the Games.