After years of preparation, the opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics is fast approaching. Everyone involved in the Games has been gearing up for the two weeks in August when the world will be watching Beijing, from painstaking planning by the Olympic Association to the intensive training of the athletes. But there’s another group that has been planning its role in the Games, and that is the small clutch of brands that have taken advantage of the amazing (and amazingly expensive) sponsorship opportunities the Olympics presents. These brands, which range from the top ‘tier’ of Partner, through to Sponsor and Supplier, have planned their partnership deals down to the finest detail to ensure they make the most of their global exposure.
Sophisticated strategies
Not all brands use their sponsorship status in the same way though. Perhaps the most obvious difference is between B2C brand sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and Adidas and business brands, such as Lenovo and UPS. When consumer brands sponsor events, it’s all about volume and reaching a mass audience. But when it comes to business brands, the main buzzword is loyalty, explains Ron Rogowski, director of sponsorship at UPS, which is an Olympic Games Supplier sponsor this year.
“As businesses become used to switching providers quickly, it becomes harder for B2B companies to maintain market share,” he says. “So finding ways to increase customer loyalty and finding new customers is more important than ever.” For a brand like UPS then, the Olympics is a way to instil further loyalty in its customers – a fundamental difference to how a brand such as Coca-Cola will use its association with the Olympics.
Rowland Jack, senior bid consultant in the sports marketing & sponsorship team at agency Hill & Knowlton, agrees. “A B2B brand has different objectives to a B2C brand when sponsoring an event like the Olympics. They are not selling to a mass market and have more tightly targeted aims. This means their techniques are more sophisticated – it’s moving away from the idea of sticking a logo on the perimeter board or on a shirt. If it’s going to be effective, it must be more than that and form part of a complex, integrated campaign.”
Show off your assets
So how are B2B brands making sure they make the most of their deals? Bob Heussner, MD of Olympic marketing company Octagon Games Marketing, says that before a brand signs on the dotted line, it has to ensure it has the right qualities and skills to be able to showcase its expertise at the Games. “It’s not just about corporate entertainment anymore. These brands need to be able to use the Games to showcase their capabilities and demonstrate what they can do for a current or potential customer,” he says. “It gives them the chance to say to their clients, ‘If we can do something like this for the Olympic Games, in essence, it means we can do anything you ask us to’. It’s about creating case studies that are applicable to many different types of customer.”
For example, as a Supplier sponsor for this year’s Olympics, UPS is targeting decision makers in China that manage distribution and shipping by providing logistics services during the Games and managing the Olympic Logistics Centre (OLC) – the central hub from which all shipments for the Olympics will come in to and be distributed from. “We want to demonstrate to our audience our expertise in providing logistics solutions that involves so many moving parts,” explains Rogowski. “As China is the single most important area of growth for us, it’s essential we get the message out so the Chinese business audience recognises and trusts us. It creates a unique opportunity for us.” The sponsorship is backed up by ads running on TV, in print and on the Metro in China.
Instant credibility
Atos Origin, global information technology services company, is a top tier sponsor for this year’s Olympics. It provides IT solutions to support the Games including a system that relays results, events and athlete information to spectators and media around the world. Its target audience is a population of large blue chip companies.
“During the Games we can give our customers or potential customers tours of our facilities, giving them a sense of the size and complexity of the project,” says Guillaume Huard, sales & marketing director for the Olympics & major events at Atos Origin. “It also means that before and after the event, we can organise briefings in our target markets. If we start a pitch with a powerful message and impactful video showing our Olympic involvement, it gets us off on the right foot straight away and gives us instant credibility.” Heussner adds, “This works wonderfully. As a case study it adds real breakthrough and grabs people’s attention. It’s a dramatic way of showing your customers what you can do.”
Where Atos Origin’s sponsorship is also interesting is that it is totally linked to the delivery of the Games. “We are integral to the success of the Games,” adds Huard. “So, we can say that without us they wouldn’t happen. It’s an extremely powerful message for us to use. If we were to fail, it would be a very public mistake to make. We must be totally confident in what we are doing and this instils confidence in our customers – in today’s uncertain climate, this is an important factor in ensuring customer loyalty.”
Getting to know you
Another primary aim when sponsoring the Olympics is relationship building. “This is critical for B2B brands,” says Heussner. “It’s not just about corporate hospitality – it’s more than that. The Olympics gives you the chance to spend days, rather than hours with a client or potential client. And that makes all the difference.”
So, as well as showing them what you can do as a company, it also gives brands the opportunity to get to know their audience as individual people. UPS for example, uses a hotel in Beijing through which 800 people will pass. “It’s where less of the formalities happen, where customers can personally interact with key personnel,” says Rogowski. “They can ask specific questions and get to know what we’re about – as well as giving us the chance to get to know them better too.”
Karen Earl, chairman of the European Sponsorship Association (ESA), agrees that this is no ordinary corporate hospitality event. “For a business brand, one objective would be to make sure your target customer keeps you front of mind. Inviting someone to the Olympics – which is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and one few people wouldn’t accept – would certainly do that,” she says. “It cements the brand in someone’s mind, so they would associate it with something fantastic and remember it for the rest of their lives.”
Accenture, for example, sponsors the British sailing team in the Olympics. Peter Thomas, UK marketing director of Accenture, says that it offers a great opportunity for the brand to deepen relationships with clients as sailing is a sport they can actually take part in. “Our target is the British boardroom and the truth is, these executives can go to anything, at any time if they wanted to,” he says. “We offer them the chance to actually sail in a race with the team at regattas such as Cowes, which is a fantastic opportunity as it’s not something you can buy on the open market. The feedback we get from customers is fantastic – it certainly strengthens relationships and contributes towards sales – I’ve heard reports of a $2million deal that was closed on a yacht one year.”
Internal affairs
The other element that many brands are beginning to become more savvy about when sponsoring an event like the Olympics is the benefits it can provide to an internal audience – in particular the benefits of recruitment. Atos Origin for example, last year took a branded Olympics truck to major cities across France, targeting young graduates and potential employees. The truck contained pods explaining what the business is about, as well as offering prizes to see the Games in Beijing. Huard says it attracted thousands of students: “it’s becoming harder and harder to recruit for IT positions in Europe, and it’s important to differentiate ourselves. Using the Olympics card is useful.” This October, it will be repeating the campaign in Germany, Holland, Belgium and the UK.
It also runs incentive programmes for staff, such as winning prizes to see the Games or offering them the opportunity to work there for a month. Huard says this is always oversubscribed. “It shows the enthusiasm it conjures up amongst staff.” Matt Rogan, commercial director at management consultancy Lane 4, agrees. “Sponsoring an event like the Olympics shouldn’t just encompass your external audience. It can be used to motivate and encourage your staff. It should be linked to your company’s vision and communicated to staff so they can relate it to their daily working life.”
He adds that using the Olympic metaphor in training can also drive home important messages. “We found that when we linked the Olympics to training in our workshops, we saw employee engagement levels were seven to ten per cent higher than if we didn’t. This can be used in any business and shows how the event can be used as a powerful force internally.”
Measure up
Finally, it’s vitally important for brands that shell out millions of pounds on sponsoring the Olympics to ensure they actually measure the results. Of course, the first step is to set targets and know at an early stage what it is the brand wants to get out of it. “For B2C brands, it’s easier to set targets as the most important element is probably the number of sales,” says Jack. “But for B2B brands, it’s harder – particularly when you’re dealing with brand perception, which is tougher to measure.”
Rogowski agrees. “B2B marketing is about understanding clients and their long-term value. Of course, you can spend millions of dollars on awareness, but it won’t work unless you are targeting the right demographic for your business.”
Atos Origin has a way of systematically tracking customers that have been exposed to the Olympics. “We can see how it has affected our relationship,” says Huard. “In some cases, there is a direct link between the Olympics and a huge increase in sales to a customer. We know that in 95 per cent of cases where we’ve used the Olympics in our marketing there is always something positive to report.”
Sponsoring the Olympics certainly has its benefits, but of course, brands don’t go into this kind of sponsorship deal lightly. Involving complex global strategies that target an external and internal audience, they are becoming more sophisticated, while spiraling costs certainly aren’t hindering their appeal – brands such as Deloitte and Lloyds TSB have already signed up as sponsors of London 2012. It doesn’t get much bigger than this, but it’s an interesting area to watch – you never know, you might learn a thing or two.
