Spinning Sponsorship Gold

Beijing's winning bid for the 2008 Olympic Games marked the start of a gargantuan opportunity and a major marketing competition--the race for sponsorship. Interested enterprises spared no effort to win sponsorship status, form marketing teams, sign contracts with sports stars, and use the event to promote their brands and products. So now that the Games are over, how did the sponsors perform?

The 2008 Games offered a remarkable opportunity for brands to connect with the large Chinese population and the broader global audience. Ipsos in China has been tracking the brand performance of a number of key Olympic sponsors. In March of 2008, our team in China released the Ipsos Tracking Report on Sponsorship Effect of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The data obtained showed that as the Olympic Games approached, the various Olympic sponsors already produced noticeable results thanks to their sponsorship tactics. Within the past year, several sponsor enterprises' brand images have been remarkably improved, and they can be named as true winners at the Beijing Olympic Games. Global sponsors such as Coca-Cola and Visa, have perfected their strategies in staging their communication activities at various phases of the Olympic Games, leaving other enterprises far behind. It is extremely worthwhile for other sponsor enterprises to study and learn from their marketing practices.

On the whole, comparisons of Waves 7, 8, and 9 of the study shows that all sponsor enterprises were rising steadily in terms of the six sponsorship performance indices: identity recognition; media publicity; wrong recognition; sponsorship fitness; brand image; and willingness to purchase. However, there were fairly obvious differences between the individual enterprises. The top 5 enterprises across China in the overall sponsorship performance chart were Chinese dairy products producer Yili (55.8%), Chinese telecom service provider China Mobile (55.3%), Bank of China (53.6%), Coca-Cola (52.9%), and Chinese household electronics manufacturer Haier (52.6%).

Coca-Cola "Lights" China

"Give Free Reign to the Olympics, Light China" is the slogan Coca-Cola adopted for its promotion of the Beijing Games. The slogan ranked 4th in Ipsos' Olympic sponsorship slogan recognition surveys scoring a 65% recognition rate.

As one of the most enduring presences at many major events, coupled with over 80 years of Olympic sponsorship experience, Coca-Cola has brought Olympic marketing activities to its peak. This data can be fully verified by examining the survey data in Ipsos' research reports from Wave 1 to Wave 9. A very interesting phenomenon is that Coca-Cola's Olympic sponsor identity recognition indices formed a wavy line from Wave 3 to Wave 9, with the peaks occurring in Waves 5, 7, and 9 respectively, while the lows were in Waves 6 and 8. When cross-referenced with relevant events leading up to the Beijing Games, Coca-Cola's recognition reached its peak on commemoration dates and during the Olympic torch relay. Overall, Coke topped the list of foreign brands in terms of reference rate. A close look at the data in the surveys from Wave 9 show that Coca-Cola's recognition rate stood at 87.9%.

Visa Exerts Itself

Ipsos' continuous surveys show that Olympic sponsorships bring in returns when the sponsors apply marketing practices based on a down-to-earth, step-by-step manner or through novel and skillful ideas. The top 5 enterprises in sponsorship performance have all improved their Olympic marketing communication by successfully moving forward with their marketing agenda year-by-year. Visa, which did not rank highly on the overall sponsorship chart, had adopted a centralized, explosive communication strategy, and a marketing style which uses external forces to help them fulfill their goal of improving their brand image and raising customers' willingness to purchase. Their style offered a new proliferation method for Olympic marketing.

Like many other Olympic sponsors, Visa did not perform well in Ipsos China's surveys last year. The survey data in Waves 2 and 3 revealed that Visa was ranked at the bottom of the 47 brands surveyed in terms of total reference rate among Olympic sponsor identities. However, the data in Issue 9 showed that Visa had gradually attained a recognition rate of over 40%, while their sponsorship performance also continued to rise, reaching 55%.

Visa employed a unique Olympic marketing style using one of the most fundamental practices in Chinese martial arts: making full use of external forces to exert itself. In terms of their Olympic marketing campaign, Visa--currently the world's largest international credit card organization--had appointed world-class actors and sports stars from China as their main image ambassadors to make worldwide promotions. They also teamed-up with various banking institutions in China to conduct Olympic-specific marketing activities. In collaboration with several Visa member banks, including Bank of China and China Merchants Bank, Visa introduced several Olympic-themed credit card products, winning praise from consumers. Using the Bank of China as one example, Visa issued over 1 million Olympic-themed credit cards. In total, Visa presently has 17 financial institutions across China as its clients. Such precise distribution has enabled Visa to achieve its goal of improving its brand image among its target consumer groups.

In addition to the joint promotion within many UN member states, Visa also made an accurate selection on the timing of its marketing campaign. Though a "keep away from Beijing" attitude was prevalent in the build up to the Games, this approach to the Games brought in a more heated Olympic atmosphere. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games implemented a temporary outdoor advertising control plan throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games covering the time period between July 11 and September 17, 2008. This plan cleared the way for Olympic sponsors, offering a better environment for them to carry out their marketing agendas. It is also against this very backdrop that Visa placed extensive advertising campaigns, obtaining very sound market results.

Coca-Cola: The Gold Standard Since 1928

According to Ipsos' preliminary post-Games report, a total of 11 sponsors were winners at the Beijing Games. And of those 11, Coca Cola topped the podium with 3 gold and 2 silvers in the various categories. As one of the global partners of the Olympic Movement, Coca Cola boasts 80 years of sponsorship experience, tracing back to the 1928 Amsterdam Games. They've developed a deep understanding of how to take on the big Olympic sponsorship stage and attract public attention. That is the reason why Coke took the lead in three items of sponsorship, namely identity recognition, sponsor voice, and low misidentification rate. Coca Cola, which has actively spread the Olympic spirit around the world and across China, has also greatly improved customers' willingness to purchase its products, winning a silver medal for that category. For the overall score on "Olympic Sponsorship Performance", Coca Cola again wins a silver medal. Given the large number of improvement indices in the report, this is a hard-earned achievement.

Visa: A "Trustworthy" Brand

Among the multitude of sponsors, Visa had a relatively small target customer base in China, and it only earns significant profits when Chinese citizens go abroad and shop using foreign currency cards. Given this fact, it might seem unfair to have the brand's Beijing performance appraised when so many of the judges are average Chinese citizens with little relation to the brand. However, the Olympic Games is such a big stage that it would be a waste for any sponsor to fail to fully play their role. Visa understands its target audiences deeply and scored good results in improving the "trustworthy" brand image, thus claiming gold in that category. It also pocketed a bronze for "Brand Image Improvement". Looking back, high praise goes to Visa's advertising featuring the three Chinese superstars of Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, and Jackie Chan, respectively representing the Olympic spirit of "higher, faster, stronger".

These are findings from a special report conducted by Ipsos in China. For information on research regarding sponsorship performance in North America, please contact Trent Ross of Ipsos Public Affairs at [email protected].