文 | 食悟（ID：food-gnosis）
A hierarchical Olympic sponsorship system, valuable sponsorship seats, and industry-exclusive identity rights...... Focusing on "official sponsorship" and "unofficial sponsorship", every Olympic Games is inevitably indispensable for open and secret fighting, and there are always one or two heads in all walks of life who are fighting for marketing resources.
However, according to Shiwu's professional research, Olympic marketing is not only a comparison of budget and resources, but also a confrontation between strategy and tactics. Sponsors spend a lot of money, but there are many people who have a mediocre response and little effect; Among the non-official sponsors, there are also those who see the big from the small to the big, leverage the resources, and reap the recognition of consumers and the improvement of commercial value.
Participating in the Olympic marketing competition, what pitfalls do enterprises need to avoid? In the face of those unavoidable challenges, how to see the tricks and use every dollar on the blade?
Focusing on marketing innovation, this issue will remind all enterprises involved in Olympic marketing from the three dimensions of official sponsorship, unofficial sponsorship and spokesperson: there are thousands of roads, and safety is the first. Only by avoiding those invisible reefs and trenches can we shine on the Olympic stage.
Pit 1: Official sponsorship, not lying to win
The Olympics is an excellent window for national and global exposure, and no matter how large the scale of the enterprise, it must be coveted. As long as conditions permit, they must be willing to spend money and spend money on marketing budgets, but in terms of participation methods, the biggest difference is whether the company conducts official sponsorship.
However, the official sponsorship rights and interests of the Olympic Games are not like buying insurance, nor are they necessarily "vigorously performing miracles", "losing money to make money", and "sponsorship is in vain".
In 2010-2013, Dongfeng Citroen became a senior sponsor of the Chinese badminton team/Chinese Badminton Association, and in the next four years, the cooperation between the two sides was upgraded, and Dongfeng Citroen became the official partner of the latter.
At that time, a survey showed that there were a large number of car buyers and car media who were unaware of the cooperation of the official sponsorship of the badminton team, while Li Ning and Red Bull, who were also sponsoring the badminton team at that time, were able to attract attention by winning the championship by Chen Long. Since 2015, Dongfeng Citroen's sales have also been declining.
The reason why Dongfeng Citroen's marketing budget is wasted is that the product design concept of its French cars cannot keep up with the upgrading needs of Chinese families, but the more profound reason is that there is no sponsorship status, but its products/models lack the intrinsic connection with badminton, and Dongfeng Citroen has not found a suitable entry point for the Olympics.
From the example of Oriental Citroen, it can also be seen that the effect of Olympic sponsorship is not necessarily positively correlated with the level of sponsors. In fact, it's not uncommon for low-ranking sponsors to steal the limelight from high-ranking sponsors.
At the Beijing Olympic Games, Li Ning himself lit the flame at the opening ceremony, which made Li Ning's brand mind enter the hearts of many viewers who did not know the truth.
During the Rio Olympics, according to data from the statistical website OrigamiLogic, Nike, which has the lowest sponsorship level, has far surpassed Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's and other top sponsors in Rio with the highest sponsorship level, firmly locking in the first place.
According to Shiwu's professional research, in fact, Olympic sponsorship is a long-term battle, integrated marketing, in addition to the basic sponsorship cost to obtain identity, but also to prepare a marketing budget several times the sponsorship fee, marketing to take into account To consumers and To media, in order to effectively improve visibility.
Acer once won the top sponsor of the London Olympics, but after paying a huge sponsorship fee, it suffered a huge loss for the first time in history, and its credit rating was also downgraded to "junk level" by Fitch. At that time, Acer had to cut back on subsequent Olympic marketing expenses if it wanted to make a profit, and saw tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship money go down the drain.
During the Beijing Olympic Games, it is even more common for Chinese companies that are silent and dumb when they are close to the opening node of the Olympic Games after winning the sponsorship rights, such as Zhejiang Mengna Hosiery and Guangzhou Liby Daily Chemical, etc., which have not taken too many marketing actions.
Taking a step back, even if they pay sky-high sponsorship and marketing fees, companies may still be disappointed to find that the returns are very limited, but once they exit the competition, they will open up a gap with their competitors.
In 2016, Bloomberg had made statistics on the performance of Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and other major sports equipment companies in the past ten years, and their average annual sales growth rate in 2004, 2008 and 2012 was 10.6%, which was only slightly higher than the overall average sales growth rate of 9.8% in the past 14 years, but the growth rate of marketing investment reached 12.2%.
In the past three decades, the number of seats sponsored by the Olympic Games has also been rising. In the face of rising pit fees and low input-output ratios, there are destined to be many companies that are unwilling or unable to afford to sell, and are more willing to achieve marketing success through unofficial sponsorship.
The second pit: rubbing the edge of marketing, one to tell the other
If the official sponsors form a "regular army" for Olympic marketing, then the unofficial sponsors form a "guerrilla force".
The "guerrillas" may have a weak sense of abiding by the Olympic sponsorship rules, or they may take the initiative to play around the rules, and the IOC cannot sit idly by, and only by trying to protect the rights and interests of sponsors and broadcasters can the value of cooperation seats be defended.
According to public statistics, the most likely time for infringement by unofficial sponsors to official sponsors is concentrated in the countdown to the Olympic Games, the opening and closing ceremonies, the peak time of the Chinese team winning gold, the triumphant welcome ceremony of the athletes and the celebration party.
The criterion for determining infringement is mainly to see whether the non-official sponsor has improperly used the Olympic flag, logo, motto, anthem, mascot, slogan, torch and other related trademarks or patents for commercial purposes.
During the Beijing Olympics, the CCTV program "Between Cities" was stopped and warned by the International Olympic Organizing Committee because of the appearance of the Olympic rings logo.
After Beijing, the International Olympic Organizing Committee (IOCOG) has also significantly strengthened its intellectual property protection in China, not only registering trademarks such as "Olympic Games" and "Rio2016" in Chinese characters, but also clearly stipulating that the use of words such as "Olympic Games" for commercial promotion is a direct infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of the IOC.
But until today, the Olympic marketing can be said to be repeatedly prohibited, many companies seem to be weak in consciousness, or knowingly, in essence, in fact, marketing thinking and resource limitations are single, can only do the simple implantation of Olympic resources.
The Intellectual Property Office has issued a notice rejecting hundreds of malicious trademark applications such as "Yang Qian", "Chen Meng" and "Quan Hongchan". At the same time, there are also unauthorized use of Olympic-related symbols for commercial purposes without permission, and Changan Mazda and Douban have been administratively fined tens of thousands of yuan.
During the Beijing Winter Olympics, Ningbo bakery, Hangzhou café and several other businesses that rubbed the "Bingdundun" IP hotspot were ordered to be removed from the shelves by local market supervision bureaus; Beijing Erguotou Liquor and Beijing Calorie Sports (its product Keep) have been fined tens of thousands of yuan for using the Winter Olympics logo without authorization.
Even if the company is repeatedly banned, there are bugs in the Olympic sponsorship rules themselves, and sponsoring companies can operate marketing with bugs.
Shiwu has previously introduced in the "Olympic Marketing Battle" series of reports that there are three main ways of official sponsorship: the International Olympic Organizing Committee, the Single Olympic Organizing Committee, and the sports team. When the sponsor of an athlete/sports team is a competitor to the official sponsor of the IOCOG, there are regulations that the sponsoring athlete can only "cheer for the athletes and the national team", but not "cheer for the Olympics", otherwise the legitimate rights and interests of the official sponsor will be damaged and the sponsor's enthusiasm for sponsoring the event will be discouraged.
Historically, Nike has given full play to the athlete's endorsement resources in the competition for Adi.
At the Rio Olympics, Adidas, which has sponsored three consecutive Olympic Games, was suddenly absent as an official sponsor, but Nike still did not compete for sponsorship seats, but achieved better communication performance by frequently posting advertisements and bombarding social networking sites during the Olympics.
One of the commonalities of these advertising techniques is that the world's top athletes, such as the decathlon world record holder and the Jamaican women's 100-meter champion, convey the spirit of sportsmanship by themselves or their relatives, and have received a large number of likes and comments from netizens on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
The IOC is also aware that this bug will have to be fixed sooner or later, and that fixing it will give non-Olympic sponsors more room to play and increase the popularity and marketing value of the Olympics.
Prior to 2019, non-sponsors were not allowed to advertise athlete endorsements during the Games, but after 2019, the IOC approved a revision of a regulation on the commercial rules for athletes, allowing athletes and other Olympic participants to use and appropriately expose their personal sponsorship brands while safeguarding the interests of official sponsors.
Of course, the adjustment of the rules, with new superiors, will also bring dissatisfaction. For example, the joint operation of Mengniu and Coca-Cola to become a global partner of the International Olympic Committee caught Yili off guard, and Yili also publicly reprimanded it.
However, according to the professional research of Shiwu, behind the adjustment of rules, win-win interests are fundamental, and more enterprises can only be committed to the rules, turning their attention to the athletes, event broadcast platforms, event hotspots and surrounding dimensions, drawing a huge arc, and making great efforts.
Pit 3: Bet on the spokesperson, willing to gamble and lose
As one of the biggest IPs of the Olympic Games, the world's top athletes have undoubted commercial value.
Moreover, Shiwu has previously introduced in the "Olympic Marketing War" series of reports, since the Rio Olympics, there has been an obvious trend of celebrity and idol spokesperson, and the public not only pays attention to the competitive realization of athletes, but also pays more attention to their personalized side, which is easy to have memory points for their published opinions and life gossip, but it is also a test of whether enterprises can intervene in time and take advantage of marketing.
It is true that athletes with good image, good competitive performance, good personal reputation, and their own topics are more likely to be bet on by companies, but the situation on the field is changing rapidly, and no one can promise a brand a sure deal. In general, companies betting on athletes will do the following:
1. Boiled water type: Even if they are the favorites to win the championship, there is no shortage of upset small probability events, and if you are afraid, you are afraid, and the athletes have neither achievements nor topics
In Rio, Ning Zetao played four times, or he did not achieve results in the finals, or he was eliminated very early, and his expression was gloomy and few words in front of the camera of the CCTV interview, and the relevant discussions on social platforms were also very bleak.
To this end, the brand customized its slogan "Don't come here at the peak, don't turn around and leave when you're at the trough" in an attempt to win back the hearts of fans.
2. Hot potato type: It doesn't matter if the results are the results, the key is that the athletes have enough topics, but they are easy to attract negative public opinion
The most typical example is that no matter how miserable the performance of the Chinese men's basketball team and the Chinese men's football team is, they are still regarded as excellent sponsors by many brands: on the one hand, the sports industry has promising prospects, has a broad and long-term fan base, and there is always no shortage of topics; On the other hand, the national team is always a golden signboard, and the competitive spirit behind it can bring positive blessings to the brand.
After Adi, Nike's sponsorship of the Chinese men's football team obviously did not intend to promote the sales of jerseys, but valued the endorsement of the national team, engraved the football gene into the brand, and valued the future heating of football and the prospects of industrial development.
3. Public lover type: There are both achievements and positive topics, but many sponsors share them
In every Olympic Games, athletes who can achieve polygon warriors in terms of image, achievements, word of mouth, topics and other dimensions are simply rare, and all companies are grabbing them.
For example, in the Beijing Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing endorsed brands from all walks of life: Anta, Mengniu, Luckin, Yuanqi Forest, Tomson Beijian, Bank of China, Estee Lauder, Xiaohongshu, JD Retail...... The endorsement value of the spokesperson is also diluted, and it is difficult for consumers to remember which brands the athlete endorses.
However, if the brand only allows it to shoot advertisements, attend events, and interact with social media such as Weibo in accordance with the contract, and the athletes themselves still have closed training before the Games at the end of May, only the opportunity to celebrate before and after the Olympics may not allow the company to achieve the expected exposure effect.
4. Niche dark horse type: the achievements are remarkable, but the topic is niche, and the hot spots are fleeting, and they need to be quickly intervened
In terms of endorsement objects, the national diving team, table tennis team, badminton team, and swimming team have always been the best investment targets, but in recent Olympic Games, those niche projects are entering the public eye.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, after China won China's first gold medal in the 2000m relay race of the mixed team short track speed skating race, the Swiss professional watchmaking brand Omega immediately announced that Fan Kexin, a member of the team, had become a close friend of the OMEGA brand. A week later, freestyle skier Xu Mengtao won the mixed team gold medal in aerials, and a week later, Yili Jindian announced on its official Weibo that Xu Mengtao had become its brand ambassador.
This is the sixth issue of the "Olympic Marketing Battle" series of reports, I hope it will be of reference value to you, so please look forward to our follow-up reports~