Posts from ‘Vancouver 2010’
Winter Olympics – Heineken House
One of the most eye-catching pieces of activation to emerge from the Winter Olympics was the return of the ‘Holland Heineken House’, an events space which was dubbed as ‘the official national house of the Dutch Olympic Committee’.
Open from 11 to 28 February, the house was a welcoming outlet to sports fans, athletes, media representatives and coaches who could experience all things Dutch. Performances by Dutch artists and DJ’s were hosted every night during the Games, while fans could experience the pace of bobsleighs via interactive machines, recieve a massage while watching the action on TV, or just socialise with friends while enjoying a bottle or two of Heineken.
By providing an experience, a branded space where people can relax and enjoy themselves, Heineken managed to give drinkers something extra and stand out from the numerous brands using the Olympics, while simultaneously supporting the country of its origin. The brand’s previous Olympic houses have generated some effective results – at the Turin Winter Olympics it hosted 100,000 visitors and at the Beijing Olympics the house entertained 95,000 guests.
See the video for a ‘guided tour’ of the Heineken House.
Away from the Olympics, the brand continues to heavily promote its sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League across Europe, including highlighting its ‘Heineken Experience’ competition to win a dream holiday to Brazil to watch this year’s final.
In Italy in October, on the night of the hugely anticipated Real Madrid vs AC Milan game, the brand decided to stage a fake event at the same time as the match, a mix of classical music meets poetry in a theatre. To make this happen, Heineken recruited around 200 people (girlfriends, professors, bosses etc) to help get over 1000 people to sacrifice watcjing the game on TV and into this event. See footage from the campaign here
And in Ireland its association with rugby – through the Heineken Cup – is the focal point of TV and press executions.
With the Winter Olympics now past the midway point, battles for consumer attention away from the action on the snow and ice are well and truly underway. Click on the brand names below to view some of the activity that we’ve already monitored at Xtreme:
Samsung appear to be the most prolific ATL advertiser among the official sponsors. It is running Olympic related creative across Europe to leverage its status as an IOC sponsor, promoting handsets including Jet and Omnia, and showcasing its live TV facilities. In the US, co-branded ads with AT&T highlight the live footage available via the network and its Mystic handset – interestingly in the States the brand chooses to focus on its association with the US Olympic team rather than its IOC deal.
P&G, a Team USA sponsor, as opposed to IOC or Vanoc partner, has adopted an increasingly common multibrand strategy, with 18 of its brands combining with the corporate brand in an effort that also includes P&G’s first corporate TV ad in the U.S. Appealing to its core ‘Moms’ market the emotive TVC broke during the opening ceremony featuring a collection of children, playing out scenes from the Winter Olympics from the opening ceremony to injury disappointments and medal winning success. Budweiser, another Team USA sponsor, has thus far taken a slightly less imaginative approach, instead focusing on the thrills and excitement of the Games, a method also used by Asahi in Japan, which is the official beer brand of Japan’s Olympic team
A common and relatively inexpensive approach brands can take to leverage the Games is to partner with broadcasters, an option both BMW and Goodyear have taken with NBC.
Of the guerrilla activity, electronics retailer Euronics is parodying Curling in a humourous, and somewhat bizarre, TVC across Europe where stones have been replaced with the latest HD TV sets….
In the UK, other than the aforementioned Samsung activity, Omega has probably been the most prolific of the IOC sponsors, with short TVCs highlighting its status as the official timekeeper of 24 Olympic Games. And it wouldn’t be Winter Olympic season without a brand trotting out our most infamous Winter Olympian, Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, who is currently staring in ads for insurance brand Churchill. And from the ridiculous to the sublime, we congratulate Amy Williams on her sensational gold medal win in the skeleton on Friday, making her the first British solo gold medallist in 30 years. Does an endorsement deal now beckon?
Interesting short video featuring Visa’s CMO, Antonio Lucio, talking about Visa’s strategy in Vancouver and the prospects for 2012. Some of the interesting things he points out:
- The brand is pursuing an athlete centred strategy to communicate its association with the Games
- Visa benefits from 20 years of global sponsorships that allows it to closely track the impact of featuring Olympics-related themes in its advertising on business performance
- It takes a fairly cautious approach, focusing on benefits and promotions
- Go World specifically tells stories to help lift and inspire people, amidst gloomy economic conditions
With thanks to the blog sportsmarketing.fr
The official kit of Team GB’s 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games campaign was unveiled this week by adidas, the official sportswear supplier of the team.
Athletes from the team, including bobsleigh competitor Nicola Minichiello and short-track speed-skating podium hopeful John Eley, were present to model the kits at a public ice-skating event, held at London’s Somerset House.
adidas used revolutionary 3D technology never before used in the UK to turn the location into a giant block of ice, which then exploded to reveal the team in their newly-kitted glory. The brand’s ‘Impossible is Nothing’ mantra was also prevalent, written on the site of the building and over a specially set up ice skating rink with projectors.
Visitors also had the chance to check out Team GB’s slick looking black bobsleigh, complete with adidas branding and the official Team GB lion’s head insignia.
As a rule, us Brits are never that enthralled by the Winter Olympics – mainly because we’re not very good at winter sports – but there appears to be more interest in next month’s games, perhaps partly as this is the last Olympic meeting before London. The BBC is certainly trying to arouse interest via its beautifully animated promo. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here courtesy of our friends at The Reel.
Vancouver has less than one month to go until its edition of the Winter Games gets underway (24 days at the time of typing), and so momentum is gathering in terms of Olympic related advertising and marketing.
A small snapshot of some of the activity that we’ve already monitored at Xtreme include;
IOC partner Coca-Cola is launching a campaign in the US featuring limited edition cans (no surprises there) and integrating its loyalty/rewards programme, mycokerewards.com
Another IOC partner, Visa, has stuck by its ‘Go World’ campaign that it served in 2008, with a more icey veneer but a still warm Morgan Freeman voice over (something that has won a – very small – army of fans on facebook)
Switzerland Olympic Team partner Swisscom taking a somewhat increasingly common creative approach (adidas / Halifax) to ride participants to the tournament on a wave of people
Guerilla activity is also alive and well, as this advert from Subway with their seemingly redeemed wonderboy Michael Phelps swimming his way through bricks and mortar to Canada would seem to suggest. In Canada itself, yoga apparel brand Lululemon is courting significant controversy with the launch of a clothing line named “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011 Edition” and by offering free yoga lessons over the course of the event.
Over the coming weeks we’ll keep the blog updated with some of the eye-catching creative work of brands for the Games that crops up on the Xtreme Information service.
If you’ve any thoughts about what you’ve seen so far, please feel free to comment below…
Will Coke’s use of mycokerewards.com help it to fend off any ambush activity from the likes of Pepsi?
Can summer sports stars in any way offer a route to Winter Olympic relevance?
Our Flickr Stream
