Any Gold Medals for Olympic Marketing?

The Rio Olympics Creates a Rash of Sponsorship Campaigns

Global brands pay big money to sponsor the Olympic games. They will all have their own specific objectives for this activity which will include metrics such as engendering employee pride, building brand awareness and positive brand engagement, increasing customer loyalty and, if they’ve played their cards right, an uplift in sales. Whatever their specific targets, they will all be looking to maximise the return on their investment.

However, the run up to the 2016 Olympics has been a perfect storm with the scandal around Russian state sponsored doping, the Zika virus frightening athletes and tourists, Brazil in major recession with a political crisis forcing the president out of office and the city of Rio in financial meltdown. Other media scare stories have included sewage in Guanabara Bay and demonstrations attacking the torch procession in Rio, involving riot police, tear gas and rubber bullets.

Although the issues for Brazil have been proportionally much greater than in the past, usually once the games start all the problems are forgotten. The prowess of the athletes and the excitement of the sporting events takes over. And that is true of the Rio games as well. However, there has also been a constant sideshow of problems: volunteers not turning up, a lack of spectators (sometimes caused by security checks involving hours of queuing), food shortages in venues and water-polo and diving pools turning green due to lack of treatment chemicals.

Security has been an issue too, Brazil ranks 105 out of 163 countries in the World’s most dangerous place index, and there have been issues such as stray bullets from favela gun battles and the controversy surrounding US swimmer Ryan Lochte and an armed security guard.

There have been other health and safety concerns too: a rope-mounted camera fell 30 feet into the packed Olympic Park causing two injuries; problems of exposed wiring and poor plumbing within the Olympic Village accommodation; TV studios have been flooded; and a sailing ramp collapsed. The Australian team, having moved out of their dangerous Olympic Village accommodation, stayed in a hotel that caught fire, and while they were being evacuated from the hotel their rooms were robbed! While writing this Thought an Irish Olympic official has been arrested for alleged ticket fraud and a Team GB athlete robbed at gunpoint, resulting in athletes being told that “taxis are not safe” – underlined by the sad death of German canoe slalom coach Stefan Henze in a taxi accident – and it is not worth the risk of leaving the Olympic village.

So where does this leave the Olympic sponsors? For global companies, that have paid between $100m and $200m to link their brands to this spectacle of sporting achievement, will the controversies surrounding the Rio games mean the money has been poorly spent?

There have always been some issues with particular Olympic sponsors such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola promoting fast food and sugary drinks under the cover of a health-focused sporting event. The rising levels of obesity in Brazil have already caused problems but these companies regularly have to weigh any negative publicity with the positives of sponsorship and they deem it very worthwhile. However, the scale of the issues linked to the Olympics in Brazil has changed their approach. Sponsors are downplaying activities in Brazil and switching marketing activity to other countries.

McDonalds, for example, had their biggest ever restaurant for the London 2012 event while for Rio the “kiosk” in the main Olympic park is a fraction of that size. There are also reports that, amid fears for VIP safety, sponsors are returning corporate tickets for important events. Strategically, there is also a major shift of marketing expenditure being diverted away from showcase activity at the Olympic Park and towards social media, a phenomenon which would have taken place even without the problems in Brazil.

So what are the positives? Well, as already stated, the athletes have done their jobs producing thrilling sporting achievements and new world records. And there have been some great sponsorship campaigns: Visa has sponsored the first ever refugee team and disabled athletes, putting diversity and acceptance at the centre of its 2016 Olympics sponsorship. Its 360 degrees of acceptance campaign is highly commendable.

Coca-Cola has used the event to push its non-fizzy drinks such as Vitaminwater, Minute Maid, Zico, Powerade and Core Power via Instagram and Twitter. P&G has run a highly positive and emotional campaign featuring “strong moms.”

Samsung has used the Olympics as part of a strategic push to change brand perceptions from a focus on the technology itself, to how the technology can help people. In the UK they’ve used comedian Jack Whitehall and #SchoolofRio for their social media campaign. According to the latest Brand Agility Index from PR firm Waggener Edstrom Communications, Samsung has run the most prominent social media campaign amongst the sponsors, doing more than twice as well as Coca-Cola who came second.

Sometimes you can just be unlucky (or not thorough enough with your sourcing). A few days ago, McDonalds might have won the gold medal for the best Olympics associated campaign. The free fitness trackers in their Happy Meals ticked every box for relevance by incentivising children to be active. However, after only two days they had to withdraw the free gifts and associated campaign due to rashes appearing on children’s skin. It’s now looking like a wooden spoon campaign!

So for most sponsors these games are about finishing the course not winning gold. They may just sigh with relief if they can get to the end of the Rio games without any further disasters. But one difficult Games will not put the brakes on Olympic sports sponsorship. No doubt they will all be looking forward to the relative security of PyeongChang in 2018 and Tokyo in 2020.