Advertisers compete for the online podium – The Globe and Mail

The London Olympics officially open Friday, but just like the athletes that will parade through the opening ceremonies, the most aggressive and savviest advertisers began staring down their competition far in advance of this moment. In the ad world, the Games began months ago.

In a sign of a broader trend, Procter & Gamble has been targeting pre-Olympic advertising as intensely as it would ads during the Games. P&G has gone hard on Web advertising, releasing ads online before they hit TV.

We intentionally chose to launch a digital-first campaign,” said David Grisim, associate marketing director at P&G Canada. “By launching digitally first, we found that we got a much higher level of engagement than we would in a traditional campaign.”

Olympic sponsors have collectively spent millions to be associated with the Games, and cannot afford to rely on traditional TV advertising to make good on that investment. P&G needed to encourage people to watch and share the ads so that by the time they are seen on television, they are well-known. Its campaign focuses on the mothers behind the athletes, and was promoted heavily on social media to create an early connection, especially with moms, who are a target market for many of its products. A video featuring Canadian triathlete Paula Findlay and her mother, part of a series of “Raising an Olympian” online videos, is a good example of the maternal tearjerker theme.

The results have been better than expected: In Canada, its “Best Job” commercial reached 150,000 views on YouTube in its first week after launching in April. Since then, 1.4 million Canadians have seen it. An even more important metric for P&G is that an average of one in three viewers shared the video with others.

“We’ve never seen numbers like that,” Mr. Grisim said.

via Advertisers compete for the online podium – The Globe and Mail.

Strange Random Olympics Quote:

“Here’s a good trick.
Get a job as a judge at the Olympics. Then, if some guy sets a world record, pretend that you didn’t see it and go: Okay, is everybody ready to start now?” ― Jack Handey

 

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Britain flooded with ‘brand police’ to protect sponsors – Home News – UK – The Independent

Hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers will begin touring the country today enforcing sponsors’ multimillion-pound marketing deals, in a highly organised mission that contrasts with the scramble to find enough staff to secure Olympic sites.

Almost 300 enforcement officers will be seen across the country checking firms to ensure they are not staging “ambush marketing” or illegally associating themselves with the Games at the expense of official sponsors such as Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and BP. The clampdown goes on while 3,500 soldiers on leave are brought in to bail out the security firm G4S which admitted it could not supply the numbers of security staff it had promised.

Yesterday, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, refused to rule out that even more soldiers may be called upon to help with security, but dismissed the issue as merely a “hitch”. However, as well as the regular Army, the Olympic “brand army” will start its work with a vengeance today.

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority ODA are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including “gold”, “silver” and “bronze”, “summer”, “sponsors” and “London”, if they give the impression of a formal connection to the Olympics. See examples of banned and allowed advertising below.

via Britain flooded with ‘brand police’ to protect sponsors – Home News – UK – The Independent.

Strange Random Brand Quote:

‘Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.’ – Walter Landor

 

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British Library puts 19th C newspapers online – Yahoo! News

LONDON AP — The newspaper coverage was troubling: London’s huge international showcase was beset by planning problems, local opposition and labor woes — and the transport was a mess.

It sounds like the 2012 Olympics, but this was the Great Exhibition of 1851 generating stories of late trains, unscrupulous landlords and dangerous overcrowding.

Coverage of the event is found in 4 million pages of newspapers from the 18th and 19th centuries being made available online Tuesday by the British Library, in what head of newspapers Ed King calls “a digital Aladdin’s Cave” for researchers.

The online archive is a partnership between the library and digital publishing firm Brightsolid, which has been scanning 8,000 pages a day from the library’s vast periodical archive for the past year and plans to digitize 40 million pages over the next decade.

A glance at the stories of crime and scandal shows some things haven’t changed — including grumbling letter-writers complaining about disruption caused by the 1851 exhibition, held inside a specially built Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park.

“People were saying, ‘This isn’t good, I can’t ride my horse in Hyde Park,’” said King. One regional newspaper editor complained that the “celebrated p.m. fast train service to London” arrived two hours late and warned visitors “not to trust themselves to the tender mercies of the numerous private housekeepers” renting out rooms at exorbitant prices.

via British Library puts 19th C newspapers online – Yahoo! News.

Strange Random Newspaper Quote:

“Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers.” – Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker

 

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Animated Olympic athletes star alongside mascots in 2012 film

Image via Wikipedia

Olympic organisers have stepped up attempts to generate £1bn in merchandising revenues by launching a flagship store at Heathrow‘s Terminal 5 and unveiling an animated film featuring the 2012 mascots and a string of Team GB athletes.

The store is the first to open at an airport, acknowledging that a large proportion of the £1bn revenue target – which will raise £80m in profit towards the London Organising Committee‘s operational budget of £2bn – will come from the pockets of overseas visitors.

To coincide with the opening, a second animated film featuring Olympic and Paralympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville, written by children’s author Michael Morpurgo, has been released.

The film, Adventures on a Rainbow, is narrated by Simon Russell Beale.

Via http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/mar/01/olympic-stars-animated-2012-film

Unfortunately, they are not very happy for people to share the video on blogs or websites, so you have to click to watch on YouTube. Some people are SOOOO protective, don’t you think?

Strange Random Olympics Quote:

At the Olympics in China, every color was represented… and that was just the drinking water. – Evan Sayet

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London Olympics taps McDonalds to train volunteers

Image via Wikipedia

McDonald’s is to help recruit and train 70,000 volunteers who will be involved in staging the London 2012 Olympics, it was announced today.

It is believed the fast food giant’s customer service expertise and strong high street presence means its 1,200 outlets will be helpful in recruiting the volunteers. They will be called “games makers”.

McDonald’s, which spends more than £30m annually on training its 80,000 workforce, becomes the “presenting partner” for the London 2012 volunteer programme.

London Olympics taps McDonalds to train volunteers | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

Strange Random Olympics Quote:

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard” – Jesse Owens (American Athlete, 4 time Gold Medalist in Track and Field at the 1936 Olympic Games, 1913-1980)

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