The Olympics were back to Paris after 100 years. In addition to confirming newer sports like surfing and skateboarding among the more traditional modalities, like in the 2020 Tokyo Games, this edition introduced a category from outside the regular sporting world: “Breaking.” Another particularity of these Olympic Games involved the way brands participated in the event and the interactions they had throughout the games.
Always a unique marketing opportunity, combining elite athletes with entertainment, culture and community, the Olympic Games have very strict rules for using its brand, which include the Olympic rings, mascots, official logo, and typographic family. As the International Olympic Committee prohibits any branding or advertising in places where the events take place, three major opportunities guided the strategies of the event’s main sponsors: presence on social networks, near the game venues and the few (and valuable) spaces available on the clothing and equipment used by athletes and coaching staff.
With 96% of the event’s financing coming from the private sector, the brand partnerships for the 2024 Olympic Games were divided between four different groups, including international partners, premium partners, with national operations, official partners, and official supporters, involving a total of 83 brands.
The market for brand opportunities generated by the Olympics is immense: according to data from consultancy WGSN, by the end of the games, expectations are that 1.5 million people will watch the competitions line, in the French capital, in addition to the four billion viewers worldwide, who will see the games on television. By next week, when the Paralympic Games end, there would have been approximately 350,000 hours of transmission, making this the most televised Olympics in history.
What brands invested in these games?
With giants from different sectors including international partners (Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, Atos, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Intel, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Samsung, Toyota and Visa) and sports giants (Nike, Adidas, Asics, Le Coq Sportif and Fila) among the main partners of the event and sponsors of the athletes and teams, another opportunity for planning content for these games was through generates media generated by the athletes participating in the games in Paris – around 11,000 divided equally between men and women for the first time in history.
Different brands put together different strategies for the Paris Games. Airbnb, the event’s main partner in the hotel and accommodation sector, invested in a US $500 million contract with the IOC that will last through the 2028 Olympics. In addition to the obvious exposure of the event, the strategy of a long contract was to use the competition to again position itself as a rental option in a city with high tourist demand, with recently approved laws restricting short-stay rentals. As a result, the platform achieved a 40% increase in registered properties, with an average value of US $2,000 daily during the period of the games. On social networks, in addition to promoting the official video of the brand’s presence in Paris, Airbnb invested in creating content in partnership with athlete-influencers, especially on Instagram, to insert the brand into conversations about sports.
Another brand with a strong presence at the Games and which has a long contract with the Olympic Committee is Samsung. The current agreement also runs through 2028, but the Korean company’s history with the Olympics started in 1988, when it was one of the main local sponsors at the Seoul Games. To mark its participation in the French games, the brand launched a new Galaxy Z Flip phone in July, designed exclusively for athletes that will participate in the Olympics, so that athletes can register their experience at the games with a branded device. Conversations on social networks, however, were more concentrated on the French public, with the connection to French athletes on social media.
P&G, which has more than 30 brands in its portfolio, has sponsored the Olympic Games since 2010 and individually sponsors more than 100 athletes from 17 categories in 37 different sports, which also makes its brand present indirectly, on social networks and announcements made by athletes outside the Olympic environment, since even before the beginning of the competition.
Among sports brands, Nike’s activities are of the most consistent: the brand, which does not directly sponsor the games but is responsible for the sports equipment of Team USA, made its largest marketing investment in history for the Paris Games, spending of US $1 billion and focusing on smaller campaigns, before and throughout the games. The sports giant’s communication began with the “Am I a bad person?” campaign, with a video-manifesto narrated by William Dafoe, in addition to the distribution of content on networks showing the sporting material to be used by Team USA at the Olympic Games.
History
Historically, the presence of brands at the Olympics began in 1896, with the participation of several brands sponsoring both teams and competitors, but never directly associating themselves with the Olympic brand. From 1964 onwards, with global television broadcasts, the rules for association with the Olympic Games became more restrictive, with the goal that brands could not influence the competition itself in any way. The Covid-19 pandemic brought a new take on the participation of brands in the Olympics, as it kept costs high for brands that wanted to associate themselves with the games in some way, which influenced a change in strategy at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The Paris Olympics, therefore, is also a time for resuming the work of brands that see value in the association with sports and the Olympic Games.
