Big sponsors also hoping to win gold in Turin

Roland Jones Business news editor • Profile • E-mail

This month’s Olympic Games in Turin are all about winning for the likes of freestyle skier Emily Cook. But this year, as in years gone past, hopes of Olympic accolades are not confined to athletes.

Along with the NFL, the Olympic Games are still one of the most watched sporting events on American television. NBC Universal paid more than $2 billion to air the 2004 Summer Olympics, this year’s Winter Games and the 2008 Summer Olympics. And a number of big-league corporate names have signed up to sponsor the 2006 Winter Games, hoping to profit from their association with a major international event. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.)

“The Olympics and the NFL are the No. 1 and No. 2 most important sporting events Americans are interested in,” said Michael Lynch, senior vice president of marketing at Visa. “We spend our money where we think it will get the best return, and our research shows the Olympics and the NFL are highly effective sponsorship assets to deliver returns on investments and raise awareness and usage of our products.”

Joining Visa on the list of top-tier Olympic sponsors are names like like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Samsung and Panasonic. For these corporations, an event like the Olympics — with its global reach and themes of international goodwill and supreme physical achievement — presents a unique opportunity to link their brand to the Olympic message.

It’s all about reach, explains Arun Jain, a professor of market research at the University at Buffalo's School of Management. The Olympic Games is one of the biggest gatherings of consumers in the world, he explains, and so given the low per-unit cost of reaching these captive consumers, it makes sense for businesses to market to each of these consumers through sponsorships and advertising.

“Companies like Coke and Budweiser can’t afford not to be there; the lost opportunity would cost them dearly,” Jain said, adding that the Olympics also represents an enormous opportunity to reach populations who are just becoming affluent and developing emotional associations with new brands: “North America is no longer the growth market; India and China now represent the largest untapped markets. And brand awareness can lead to consumption habits.”

Now in its twentieth year as an Olympic sponsor, this year Visa is featuring athletes and their journeys to Olympics participation as part of an Olympian marketing campaign that is reportedly costing the firm about $50 million each quadrennial.

Visa’s Olympic plan is to link the message of the Olympics to their brand “in a relevant and meaningful manner,” notes Visa’s Lynch. “With the Olympics, it’s about our connection with the athletes — that is the consumer passion. We help the athletes on their journey to achieve their dreams; we are empowering these athletes to do their very best. And so we will build an integrated marketing program around that notion.”

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