The Branding Games: Lessons in Sports Marketing from the 2014 Sochi Olympics

The Branding Games: Lessons in Sports

Marketing from the 2014 Sochi Olympics

MARKETING AT SOCHIAll eyes are on Sochi. Unlike a major sporting event like the Super Bowl however; the games are imbued with a multitude of social and political agendas, making sponsorship a risky move.

On one hand, the opportunity to gain immense visibility, cultivate partnerships with potential influencers and athletes, sell product and possibly conjure up a halo-e�ect for your brand are compel-ling reasons to bite the sponsorship bullet. However, catering to a global audience in a politically volatile climate comes with a whole host of complications:

Lessons in Sports Marketing from the 2014 Sochi Olympics


2014 WORLDWIDE OLYMPIC PARTNERS 2014 NATIONAL OLYMPIC PARTNERS

LOW ASSOCIATION: 10 of the 15 brands most associated with the winter games were not sponsors (Global Language Monitor study), meaning that the benefit of taking on the sponsor title was not even remotely worth the cost.

1.


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The cost for companies like McDonalds and Coca-Cola was having their insignia emblazoned on o�cials who represent a government and poli-cies a large section of their consumers abhor. These heavily Millennial-dependent brands might have inadvertently cast the devil-e�ect on their brand by visually aligning with a government that promotes in their opinion, an archaic view on love.

THE DEVIL EFFECT:


These aren’t brands trying to build aware-ness and recognition, they’re trying to convey their personality and define them-selves on the global stage. They’re trying to speak to their consumers and position themselves in a positive light.

ANY PRESS IS NOT GOOD PRESS: 3.

As the recent upswing in emotional brand messaging and CSR-themed campaigns demon-strates, consumers have begun to expect brands to be the vanguards of moral standards. Sochi sponsors were either dragged through the mud for sponsoring the games or directly challenged to take a stand.

Brands have often tried to avoid taking polarizing stances in order to prevent consumer alienation. However, what Sochi has illustrated is that brands cannot a�ord to stay mum when convenient anymore. Contributing to the public narrative and remaining relevant are two essential pillars of brand management today. Companies can’t pipe in when it works for them and throw up their hands and bleat a feeble “no comment” when it doesn’t. It makes them seem inauthentic, opportunistic and hollow. If you’re stepping into murky waters, know exactly where you’re standing.


4. FORCED TO TAKE A STAND

Brands can generally tailor campaigns to spe-cific cultures and markets, but coming up with one unified voice that satisfies all, is near im-possible. Thus, while the international stage a�ords visibility, it also compounds the prob-lem for brands trying to walk the middle path.

GLOBAL AUDIENCE5.


The winter games have a distinctly youthful, trendy element to them. This was the Millennial marketing pot of gold. However, the decidedly archaic stance of the Russian government made it di�cult for sponsors to e�ectively engage young viewers.


YOUNG MARKET6.


Hashtags in campaigns drive engagement. Brands reap the benefits of their consumers doing a lot of their work for them by way of increasing their earned media, but this comes at a cost. Brand-consumer communication today is defined by mutual conversa-tion rather than a brand directed monologue. The di-rection a brand wants its campaign to take is not necessarily the direction it ends up taking. Aside from the problem of spammers and bots hijacking hashtags, the #CheersToSochi debacle demonstrates that hashtags might actually be a dangerous game for brands to play.

BEWARE OF THE HASHTAG7.


For companies like McDonalds, Coca-Cola and sponsoring the games was an exercise in tying their own hands. Their extremely diverse cultural and geographic consumer bases pre-vents them from taking a stance reflective of just one of the many markets they cater to, at the risk of alienating the others. P&G, (Russia’s biggest advertisers according to the Wall Street Journal), similarly, couldn’t have possibly taken a brazen stance on the issue without taking a financial hit.

WHO MISSED THE PODIUM?

The company took a major hit for not taking a stand. Embracing an sponsorship also implicat-ed Coca-Cola in the detention of a gay rights protestor, putting its logo at the receiving end of LGBT activist angst. Aside from falling prey to many of the above situational factors, Coca-Cola also committed a major tech blunder. Its “Customize Your Coke” interactive campaign did not allow bottles to bear the word “Gay” on them.

COCA-COLA

SOCHI OLYMPICS 2014

#CHEERSTOSOCHIProbably one of the most hilarious hashtag hijackings in recent times, McDonalds’ innocuous “CheersToSochi” hashtag became an irony-laden battle cry for human rights activists protesting major brands’ sponsorship of the games. The com-pany completely lost control of the narrative and floundered when confronted with this surprising twist.

MCDONALDS

SOCHI OLYMPICS 2014

WHO TOOK HOME THE GOLD?

SOCHI OLYMPICS 2014

Chobani is a prime example of a brand that controlled and redi-rected the narrative in its favor when confronted with controver-sy and uncertainty. The Russian government’s reluctance to allow 5,000 containers of Chobani across its border could have spelled disaster for the brand looking to gain visibility among the elite Sochi attendees. But instead, Chobani actually benefited from the snafu.

Not only did Senator Schumer come out in support of the brand, but team USA member and half-pipe skier Aaron Blunck’s sound bite stamped the brand and its product with a distinct sense of Americana. He spoke about the importance of “food from home” and said “having the yogurt there, that helps you, gives you protein, gives you nutrition." The brand also racked up some good CSR karma by donating the 5,000 containers to charity. Its Sochi-themed rainbow stacked ad (reminiscent of Oreo’s rainbow campaign) was subtle and stood on the right side of the debate.

CHOBANI

SOCHI OLYMPICS 2014

While its campaign wasn’t exactly Sochi-themed, Chevrolet entered the dialogue right when it needed to. The company capitalized on its ability to take a brazen stand (given its non-associa-tion with the actual event) and showed up the mega-brands who refused to put their weight behind the LGBT cause.

CHEVROLET

SOCHI OLYMPICS 2014

Another brand that did extremely well for itself outside the sponsorship umbrella, American Apparel, had one of the most e�ective, revenue and brand-boosting campaigns this season. The company collaborated with various social activist groups to market its line of “Principle 6” themed clothing, which indirectly critiques the Olympic Committee’s abandonment of its founding values. The campaign does not make any direct reference to Sochi, but proceeds from the line will be used to support LGBT groups in Russia. The online video already has almost one and half million views.


The major winners then, were clearly the non-spon-sors. Their campaigns and their ability to present a unified stance were not hampered by many of the sit-uational factors that bigger brands like Coca-Cola and McDonalds had to contend with. They piped into the conversation at the right time without risking a potential brandisaster. One notable exception is P&G.

AMERICAN APPAREL

Despite its overall brand image facing a lot of the same problems that its fellow sponsors did, P&G’s campaign itself was spot on. The company’s “Pick Them Back Up” spot, a repurposed version of its super-successful “Thank You Mom” London Olympics campaign has garnered over 18 million YouTube views.

By putting the human story front and center and draw-ing from the emotional reservoir that the mother-child bond represents, P&G played it smart. Russia’s biggest Television advertiser stayed conspicuously low-key on the LGBT controversy, but fortunately for the company, its brand didn’t take as hard a beating as Coca-Cola and McDonalds. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that its consumer base isn’t as Millennial-populated.


P&G

The last mega sporting event that caught brands’ attention was the Super Bowl. Despite both events being sport-centric and commanding massive viewership, marketing at Sochi is significantly di�erent from catering to the Super Bowl crowd. A whopping 54-57% of the Super Bowl audience tunes in as much or more for the ads than for the game. The ads are an extension of the entertainment. Showy, hilarious spots often featuring celebrity endorsers were not uncommon at the big game. At Sochi, however, campaigns embodied a more somber sentiment.

While entertainment is what gets the American market to engage with a brand, it is not nec-essarily what motivates consumers in other markets around the globe. Thus, campaigns needed to maintain a degree of versatility and cross-cultural relevance, as opposed to focus-ing on mere memorability.

The games have also come to represent the spirit of global cooperation, the honor of com-petitive sport and the spirit of hard work and success. As a result, campaigns tended to focus on sentiment rather than sensationalism.

HOW IS MARKETING AT SOCHI DIFFERENT?


Some of the Sochi boarding action just hit the VG headquarters! Our friends and 500 Startups batch mates at ZBoard shipped us a custom board this month. Making a Snapple-run to the fridge or a mid-afternoon trip to the ping-pong table has never been this fun!

Aside from zipping around the MassChallenge head-quarters on our swanky new toy, we’re speeding into 2014 having signed 11 Fortune 500 brands, and hit a 1,227 % YOY growth rate.


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The Branding Games: Lessons in Sports Marketing from the 2014 Sochi Olympics