Sport Industry Group

Putting the Athletes first...- 2 Sep 2008 00:00:00

Charles Jefferson, VP of IMG Consulting, gives his reflections on the Beijing Games from a sponsors’ viewpoint…

Beijing 2008 was the biggest, best organised, most spectacular and most watched of all time, exceeding most, if not all, expectations.

From the silky synchronicity of the most lavish opening ceremony ever seen to the on-track heroics of Phelps, Bolt, Hoy and so many more, the Beijing Olympiad will live long in our memories.

Wall-to-wall, multi-platform media coverage made this the most user-friendly Games ever staged, allowing audiences around the world to immerse themselves in the experience, irrespective of timezones or the dictats of broadcasters' schedules.

Yet even as the world’s media continue to search for new superlatives to reflect the facilities and organisation which helped athletes focus on their missions and set 28 new world records, the
Olympic cycle continues to turn.

In Vancouver and on a dusty site in an otherwise unremarkable area of East London, the next Games are already taking shape. Both will be different but no less valid or engaging experiences. How and where they choose to focus their budget will be fascinating, as they surely cannot spend in the same carefree manner as China.

Future Direction

Our experiences on the ground in Beijing led us believe that the key to understanding the future direction of the Olympic Games is to acknowledge the central importance of the competitors. Amid the politics and the jostling for national and international position, it is easy to lose sight of the fact the Games are all about the competitors. They provide the action, the enthralling stories and the engagement which is the engine for all commercial activity around the Olympics.

In delivering what is universally acclaimed as the best-ever Olympic village and a transportation system which got athletes to and from their events with the minimum of fuss, BOCOG certainly recognised this.

If there was one weakness in their planning, perhaps it was in ticketing for some events. The empty seats will have disappointed athletes competing on what should be their biggest stage, and some serious thought needs to go into how these are properly distributed. Together with security – both at sporting venues and at official sites – these represent a significant issue to future Games organisers. Additionally for sponsors these will both pose a challenge, but also an opportunity to play a valued role in Games delivery.

While the digital strategies of many rights holders have made Beijing 2008 the most accessible
Games ever staged with the biggest ever contingent of media ever assembled at a sports event, coverage of the Games was not restricted to accredited 'professionals.' This was the first Games in which athletes were able to talk directly to the world through their own websites and blogs, an opportunity that many took up within the guidelines introduced by the IOC.

Athlete Narrative

Increasingly, athletes are not simply providing the narrative of the Games – they are telling the story to the world in their own words.

We consider this an important development. For the public to experience the Games through the eyes of participants without the filter of an editor, further enhances the quality of their experience and the feeling that they are sharing rather than simply witnessing the event. It's a development which is in its early stages but will have certainly matured by the time that London 2012 comes along.

The trend inevitably opens-up how opportunities for commercial partners to activate relationships with individual athletes, so long as the blog or website output remains genuine, credible and untarnished by heavy-duty commercial messaging.

This should serve to encourage commercial partners to keep athletes at the very heart of their thinking and strategy development. Athletes can provide a local relevance and an engaging mouth piece for a brand, but this relationship requires a careful selection policy that understands and values the importance of personality as well as performance in a partnership. How the consumer views the all round persona of the athlete will often dictate the levels of engagement to the sponsor’s message. Done well, a personal endorsement can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool.

Sponsor Lead Programmes

Sponsors already play a major - but often overlooked role - in ensuring the quality and excitement of world-class sports events. Their financial contribution helps to stage and manage events while the sponsorship of individual athletes and teams often makes-up shortfalls in other funding and can be the difference between success and failure.

Beijing provided a number of notable examples of the evolving relationship between sponsors and athletes at work. Sponsors’ investment in athlete lead programmes act as a tangible demonstration of the brand in action and an effective PR platform.

Visa, in its role as a global sponsor of the Games, is working with relationships at both ends of the competitors spectrum. At one end is its Team Visa initiative, in which it sponsors the development of up-and-coming athletes from countries around the world, fuelling their individual quests for Gold through a programme which also involves the participation, as mentors, of some of the greatest names in recent Olympic history including Sir Steve Redgrave. The programme currently embraces more than 200 athletes from five continents and seeks broadly to localise the sponsorship to each territory as well as promotes the brand’s everyday relevance.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Olympian Reunion centre, a project conceived and introduced by Visa at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Now run by the World Olympian Association, this enduring and hugely popular project provides a drop in venue outside of the green for members of the WOA to meet up and relax. It’s still supported by Visa and is indicative of its end-to-end supports for the people who make the Games what they are, and a means for the sponsor to add value to the Olympic experience as well as entertaining high profile guests.

TOP sponsor Johnson & Johnson also introduced a number of diverse, athlete-focused initiatives for
Beijing. Chief among these was the Olympic Polyclinic, offering medical and dentistry services to athletes. The initiative complemented broader worldwide programmes which saw Johnson & Johnson companies supplying medial products to individual NOCs.

The Polyclinic proved a major success, with athletes from some developing countries benefiting from a range of tests and check-ups they would not otherwise have had access to and allowed J&J to demonstrate its value to the Olympic movement

J & J was also responsible for another of the most popular and creative initiatives of the Games.  In collaboration with its partner organisation Right to Play, the company presented each participating athlete with two Chinese bracelets - one to wear as a memento of their Beijing experience and the other to share with somebody as a thank-you for their support and encouragement on the journey to the Games. It was a simple initiative which demonstrated a unique insight into the psyche of competitors by recognising that for every athlete in the starting line-up is a group of supporters whose own efforts and sacrifices have helped them get there. Giving athletes a unique way of acknowledging that support has tremendous value.

These are brief examples of a raft of athlete-centred initiatives introduced by partners in Beijing and each made a significant, positive difference to competitors' experience and enjoyment of the Games.

The Way Forward

Now, with four years to go before London 2012, the challenge is for other global and local Games sponsors to create and instigate programmes with the potential to deliver equally impressive outcomes. It's a process which begins with understanding what athletes need and what they value and relies upon delivering in a supportive and credible yet unobtrusive manner. In essence, it's not about imposing but adding to the experience.

In their turn athletes have the potential to deliver on many levels. In an age where inactivity and consequent obesity – particularly among young people – is a multi billion Dollar concern for governments and health bodies worldwide, their embodiment of the positive attributes of an active, focused lifestyle makes an unequivocal social statement.

There will, inevitably, be a clamour among London 2012 partners to align themselves with the most successful members of Team GB. And with 19 Gold medallists returning from Beijing there has never been such an array of potential brand ambassadors to consider. As ever the key to success will be creativity, innovation and the ability to create cut-through, not simply in relation to the other Gold medallists but the myriad other sports personalities from football, cricket, rugby and Formula 1 who will compete for media space and public mind-share in the months and years ahead.

Athletes Are the Heartbeat

Naturally, clear leaders will emerge from the ranks of GB medallists. Those whose affability and communications skills are closely aligned to their athletic ability will inevitably become premium personalities. As successful Olympians each has a unique story to tell, a story that can carefully be crafted through a brand lens. Many have made sacrifices – as have their families – not always associated with those whisked into the relative comfort zones of top level professional sport at an early age. That makes their stories even more compelling and creates points of difference which means that these personalities will endure through London 2012 and beyond.

Beijing 2008 was history in the making and the people who made history are the athletes who were the heartbeat of the Games and can now play the same central role in partners’ programmes.

Maximising and capitalising upon that reach can only produce a win-win for the Games, its partners and, of course, the athletes at their centre.