As athletes descend on the year-late Tokyo Olympics this summer, they will be met without the familiar hum of traffic, of visitors and fans in the stadium cheering them on as they look to culminate what is now five years of training toward a gold medal. Their sponsors, and those of the wider games, will feel that silence in spades, as COVID-19 restrictions in Japan mean there will be no crowds or international visitors at this year’s games.
Chart: Domestic Sponsorship Revenue from Olympic Games, $millions
Those sponsors are left seeking alternatives to the face-to-face networking that has been lost to the pandemic – key corporate sponsors like Coca Cola, Intel and General Electric among others funnel millions of dollars into each Olympic cycle, in part because of the one-stop shop for business development.
It is an arena that allows for a portfolio expansion of rising athletic stars wearing or using their brand; for discussions with diplomatic leaders in countries where they wish to expand their business; and ultimately more of a short term regional boost to local sponsors marketing to the on-average 6.2 million spectators that descend on an Olympic city every four years. It all falls under an umbrella that international and domestic brands may struggle to replicate from their homes.
Responses to COVID-19 disruption appear improvised and short-term, in part due to the late notice given to the banning of fans or international visitors to the games. It is expected that COVID-19 will accelerate and enhance digital strategy, with a renewed focus on the home audience; 3.6 billion people viewed the last Olympics in Rio, those games also generated 75 billion twitter impressions and 1.5 billion facebook interactions which contributed to 7 billion total views of Olympic content on social media in 2016. Expect those numbers to rise further as brands divert funds into distance-friendly sponsorship tactics.
But in an increasingly crowded digital pool, these strategies are likely to result in unequal gains. Brands at the top of the pile already avail of a strong social media presence, and the big hitters like Coca Cola can be expected to drown out competitors with social media impressions. A thought should also be spared for local sponsors, who invested to bring the games to Tokyo and are now left on the same footing as any other brand.
In both cases, vulnerable sponsors would do well to learn from alternative marketing strategies – Under Armour benefitted by focussing on athlete sponsorship – helped by one of those athletes being Michael Phelps – without funnelling a single penny to the Olympics, a strategy that will look considerably astute when the camera favours those athletes in a fan-free event. ‘Ambush marketing’ may also proliferate; Pespi Co. flooded the internet in China prior to the Beijing 2008 olympics with competitions, leading many to believe they, rather than Coca Cola, were official sponsors of the games. In a new digital world of disinformation, the ends here justify the means for emergent, eager brands.
On the other hand, the most successful marketing campaign may be none at all; Toyota recently pulled out of sponsoring the Olympics amid a wave of negative public sentiment and rising COVID case in Japan. As a homegrown international sponsor, Toyota’s reticence to put their weight behind these games emphasises the tightrope for brands entering into sponsorship deals with the Olympics. Perhaps not all publicity is good publicity, and brands that go heavy on supporting a politically contentious Olympic Games could find themselves attracting awareness for all the wrong reasons.
The Tokyo Olympics have ridden many hiccups before a medal has been handed out, and there may be more to come, be it in the form of an Olympic village COVID outbreak, or in a loss of viewer engagement due to a lack of fans in the stadium. But with a free hit at striking big in digital marketing, expect sponsors to throw everything – or nothing – at the wall this summer.