Branding on an Olympic scale.
2012 is meant to be, and is no doubt going to be, a very big year here in the UK for a number of reasons. We’ve got the Olympics coming to town and, as a branding professional, all this has got me thinking…
These opportunities don’t come round every day (only every four years if my calculations are correct) and I can’t help wondering if brands are making the most of such opportunities.
Let’s take a look at the facts; A recent research by BrandWatch on web buzz showed that 7.7% of conversations about the Olympics were associated with non-sponsor Nike. This sits in stark contrast to official Olympic sponsor Adidas, who have spent a reported £100m on a deal that is reaping just 0.49% of conversations (full details of the report in Marketing Magazine here)
We’ve also seen (non-official sponsor) Subway’s Facebook page overtake that of (official sponsor) McDonalds in the wake of the launch of their oh-no-no-definitely-not-an-Olympic ‘Train Hard. Eat Fresh’ campaign which partnered with (fellow non-official sponsor) FedEx [note: not official sponsor UPS] and featured, yes, Olympians pole-vaulter Holly Bleasdale and boxer Anthony Ogogo.
So what can be done? Well, all is not lost! From our very own co-creation session with Londoners, as seen in Platform, Promise has its top 5 tips to get your brand through this sporting summer.
1. Mirror people’s feelings. Brands that empathise with what real people will be doing (in the pub, in the park, in the unusually heavy traffic) will come across as connected and human.
2. Make an explicit link to what your brand does for the Olympics, in its widest sense People struggle to figure out what the benefit is to local communities or to them personally, let people know you will still be there even when the spotlight goes off in 2013.
3. Entertain the Olympic underbelly. What will you do for those who will be skiving off work, partaking in office sweepstakes or even who will be leaving the country and sub-letting out their London pads? And don’t forget the ‘antitheme’. Perhaps not one for sponsors, but a ‘just good enough’ or ‘couch potato’ message could work well, and achieve cut-through in a sports-saturated marketplace.
4. Spot the ‘moment’ and actions of the country and react quickly. Most memorable Olympic events are human and emerge at the last minute: think ‘Eric the Eel’ from Sydney 2000
5. Go viral. The worlds’ first truly digital Olympics has so far proved disappointing in this field. Create content which can be shared, contributed to and owned by users on different platforms to get your brand out there.
This entry was posted on Friday, 8 Jun 2012 at 9:44 am and is filed under Branding, Strategy.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.