Brand Promotion in the Olympic Games

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Brand Promotion in the Olympic Games

Entrepreneurship has undergone tremendous changes as organizations focus on making profit,
through a wide of range of strategies. While this is the case, making profits is never an easy task,
as it has several difficulties. To gain competitive advantage in the business world, most firms use
promotional strategies. This guarantees them a strong image for their brands even on
international scale (Rajagopal, 2007). Nonetheless, many people do not understand the meaning
of brand promotion, including what it is and what it encompasses. Brand promotion works
towards ensuring that a company registers high profits from selling products, through an
expanded market share (Berk, Harald & Carl, 2006). This takes several processes. For instance,
manufacturers use newspapers, magazines, social media and television for effective brand
promotion. This is mainly through adverts. Thus, the media is undoubtedly the best method of
executing brand promotion in the Olympic games.
Besides the use of media to enhance brand promotion, companies also use sports and sportsmen.
Here, manufacturers or brand owners sponsor sporting event or athletes as a way of promoting
their products (Beech & Chadwick, 2006). Through history, companies sponsor sporting events
like World Cup, European Football League and Olympic Games among others. Brand owners
focus on these events because they command fanatical following in the world. It is worth noting
that a company that promotes its brand through sports is likely to experience a wide range of
advantages. The main advantage of promoting brands using sports is that such campaigns reach

massive customers across borders (Davis, 2002). Additionally, companies use sportsmen and
women in brand promotion. This happens when renowned sports personalities become customers
and buy products from specific manufacturers. Thirdly, sports events like Olympic Games help
in enhancing brand loyalty among customers as the brand gains positive attitude in the market.
While brand promotion through sports has a wide of merits, this approach could also have
negative effects. For example, sports events are at liberty to promote brands of similar products
from different manufacturers. This leads to stiff competition and could stifle efforts to realize
high sales and profits in the end. In some cases, sports event fail to attract viewers and fans
because of poor planning and organization. These misfortunes may have detrimental effects on
sponsors as the events may have no impact on promoting the brand in the market. Additionally,
manufacturers spend a lot of money on promoting their products through sports events. This is
because organizers of such events charge exorbitant prices to promote products. Because of high
cost of promoting events, some companies end up making huge losses instead of making profits.
In some cases, it is possible for teams or individual sportsmen comprise the original promotional
agreement. A good example would be a scenario where athletes refuse to use jerseys bearing
brands of certain manufacturers. When parties fail to honor the promotional agreement, it may
result into losses or negative brand image. It therefore suffices to mention that brand promotion
using sports faces a series of challenges. This research paper focuses on how Olympic Games
play a major role in brand promotion, including ways in which this international event has failed
to promote company brands.
It is doubtless that Olympic Games have existed for several years, where fans of different sports
get entertained. Besides entertainment from fascinating sports, Olympic Games remain an
avenue to promote products from different manufacturers. Recent Olympic Games were held in
London in 2012, where teams from all over the world attended. The global attention that
Olympic Games receive inspires companies to advertise their products. In most cases, only
multinationals promote their brands because they have a global customer reach and can afford
the high cost of brand promotion. For example, Coca Cola was a major sponsor of the event.
Besides this, Coke Cola was the main sponsor of World Cup in 2010 in South Africa. It is
important to note that these initiatives have been instrumental in enhancing Coca Colas sales
throughout its history in sponsoring sports (Davis, 2002). Besides Coke, other multinationals like
Barclays and Standard Chartered Banks actively sponsor these events with the aim of promoting
their products and services by attracting more customers from all over the world. Besides
winning more customers, these companies assured their loyal customers of their ability to
compete favorably with other multinationals.
Even though companies derive profitable value in promoting sports events like Olympic Games,
most people do not have a clear understanding of this approach. Notably, brand promotion
through sports takes place in different ways. Firstly, companies focus on sponsoring specific
events like Olympic Games, which have global following and recognition. Firms target high
returns when sponsoring sports events. Sponsorship takes different forms like banners, posters
and billboards, which advertisers exhibit in stadiums during competitions. Such marketing
strategies usually attract customers and strengthen the image of the brand in the market.

Secondly, some companies opt to sponsor specific teams during Olympic Games. It is usually
evident from the jerseys and other sporting kits that teams use. For example, football teams from
various countries, which take part in Olympic Games, use T-shirts, which bear labels from
different companies. LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony are leading companies, which embrace
brand promotion during Olympic Games. When a team uses jerseys with these labels, it is
always a sure way of convincing fans and customers of the strength of the brand in the market.
This remains a successful strategy of brand promotion on an international scale.
Thirdly, many TV channels worldwide get the rights to air live matches during Olympic Games
since it draws the attention of the world. With this provision, fans who cannot afford watching
live matches get the entertainment at the comfort of their living rooms. However, this is through
agreements between sponsors of Olympic Games and Global TV channels, requiring Channels to
air adverts of companies sponsoring the event. Thus, firms are able to reach a global market
through TV ads, which run in between matches, before or after a specific competition. This is
crucial in strengthening the image of the brand and improves sales. Among other advantages, TV
adverts reach many people at once. For example, Super Sport Channel advertises Guinness
products during live competitions through an agreement. Consequently, Guinness is able to
promote its brand and win more customers from all over the world, making it one of the leading
beer brands in the world.
It is worth noting Olympic Games have played an important in redefining brand promotion in the
world today. Multinationals exhibit their power through such initiatives, making their products
and services more likeable in the market. However, history is replete with cases where brand
promotion during Olympic Games has had positive and negative effects. From a positive
perspective, brand promotion through Olympic Games has helped companies to increase the
number of their customers. When an organization sponsors a successful sporting even, more
people always want to associate with such companies, thus strengthening the corporate image.
Coca Cola is a good example of multinationals, which have sponsored successful international
sporting events. This explains why the company continues to enjoy massive following with
strong brand name, which guarantees high sales. This has also contributed to its ever-growing
global membership.
Most companies, which sponsor Olympic Games further, experience high sales. Besides Coca
Cola, Omega, Acer, Samsung, Atos, Adidas, McDonalds and British Airways also sponsored
Olympic Games of 2012 in London. This, according to records, was one of the most successful
events in history largely because of the reliable sponsorship it received from these
multinationals. Most of the companies registered increased sales in 2013, a clear indication that
sports event are effective in brand promotion.
Besides increased sales and profits, sponsoring Olympic Games has helped companies gain
international recognition (Kurtz, 2010). For example, brands that were less known in the market
before 2012 Olympic Games in London gained stronger brand name. Moreover, their sales
increased significantly after the successful event. For instance, Omega and Atos lacked
international recognition in the developing world prior to the Olympic Games but improved
significantly after sponsoring the events in London (True, 2006). As a result, Acer expanded its
market coverage to less developed nations of the world in 2013. This implies that Olympic

Games contributed to its global recognition and acceptance by customers as one of the best
electronic company in the world. Equally, Atos had minimal sales before the 2012 Olympic
Games. It mainly focused on European and American market before expanding its target market
to less developed economies. Thus, Olympic Games worked well for Atos by handing it global
recognition.
As mentioned before, the use of Olympic Games in brand promotion is a double-edged sword.
For instance, this strategy did not work for some of the companies, which took part in the 2012
Olympic Games in London. Firstly, the event attracted too many sponsors from all over the
world. Thus, customers from all over the world had hard time selecting their preferred company.
This was hectic for many companies as there were firms offering the same products. This
discouraged effective brand promotion because of unnecessary competition.
Another flipside of sponsoring Olympic Games to promote brands is that it could be too
expensive to make profits thereafter. For example, major sponsors like Coke, Adidas, Acer,
Panasonic, Samsung and Atos signed a $100 million deal each to sponsor the event. This was
way too expensive and discouraged firms that had fewer shares in the sponsorship of the event in
London. In addition, some brand promotion agreements between companies and teams did not
work as some athletes compromised the agreement. A case in point, some teams rejected jerseys
carrying specific brands from manufacturers.
In summary, brand promotion during sporting events like Olympic Games and World Cup has
proved to be effective. This approach helps in brand recognition, increased membership and
improved sales, which translate into profits. Additionally, it promotes higher demand as
companies gain international recognition and seek to expand their market reach (Kurtz, 2010).
While this is the case, brand promotion in major sporting events faces an array of challenges like
stiff competition from other firms, high cost of sponsorship, tough sponsoring conditions, and
failure by sporting teams to honor promotional agreement.

References
Beech, J. & Chadwick, S. (2006). Beech, John; Chadwick, Simon, eds. The marketing of Sport.
Prentice Hall and Financial Times. p. 592
Berk A, Harald J. & Carl F. M. (2006) The Long-term Effect of Marketing Strategy on Brand
Performance, Journal of Marketing Research.
Davis, S.M. (2002). Brand Asset Management: Driving Profitable Growth through Your
Brands,. San Francisco: Josey Bass. p. 253
Kurtz, D. (2010). Contemporary Marketing Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning

Rajagopal. (2007) Marketing Dynamics: Theory and Practice. New Delhi, India: New Age
International
True, J. (2006). Globalisation and Identity. In Raymond Miller. Globalisation and Identity.
South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p.74
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