Olympic Games Advertising | Annie Wilson

Advertising for the Summer vs. Winter Olympics

Dan Loney: The world of advertising is a very busy space during the month of February. Usually, it's because of the Super Bowl. But it is multiplied this year because not only do you have the big game, but you also have the Winter Olympics, which is a two-week-long opportunity not only for athletes, but also for companies to try and gain the attention of the consumer. But how do companies prepare for such an event? Pleasure to be joined by Annie Wilson, who's a senior lecturer in marketing here at the Wharton School.

Annie, how do you think about the difference between how companies will prepare for a Super Bowl in comparison to preparing for something like the Olympics?

Annie Wilson: It's an interesting comparison. I think there's also a difference between Summer and Winter Olympic Games. But obviously the Winter Olympic Games are going to be the ones that overlap with the Super Bowl in terms of timing. I think with the Super Bowl, there's a heavier emphasis on trying to capture that spike of attention and excitement. You see a greater use of humor, for example. And also, trying to create hype around the ad that's going to come out, and then get people to talk about it afterward.

With the Olympics, it's obviously a longer moment in time. It's several weeks. And there's a long tail of lead-up that allows for more involved storytelling. You see more long- running campaigns around the Olympics in terms of trying to appear endemic in the sports world or show up as a global brand. And around the Super Bowl, it's really trying to capture that really small moment of lightning in a bottle where everybody's eyes are on the ads in this game.

Loney: Both events have corporate partners. But it feels like when you watch the Olympics, there is more emphasis on mentioning that X company is a global partner or corporate partner of the U.S. Olympic Federation.

Wilson: Yes, that's definitely true, and the Olympics is very protective of the Olympics IP, the rings, and who can claim to be a sponsor and use intellectual property and imagery. What I think is interesting is when brands actually engage in ambush marketing around the Olympics. They show up really heavily, but they're not actually official sponsors. Nike did this pretty famously in the ‘90s, in Atlanta. Beats by Dre did it pretty famously in London in 2012.

So yes, you see this use of these global partners, and what they're trying to do is show, “We're a global brand, so we're for everybody.” That gives you some prestige and a bit of an edge and from a brand equity perspective on the global stage. But it is really a small handful of brands that get to officially claim their partnership with the Olympics.

Loney: When you're watching the Super Bowl, one of the things that we've seen over the years is the want to tell a story. A company might have two spots or three commercials in the Super Bowl so that they can tell that story over a period of time. I don't think we see that as much during the Olympics, right? It's really about delivering that message, whether it be the connection to U.S. Olympic team, or the connection to the United States, or that feel-good message that the company wants to deliver.

Wilson: I would say that feels generally true. There's also a lot of, on the Olympic stage, getting your brand to show up from an awareness perspective. I just want my logo to show up somewhere. I want to be associated with the Games. What I've observed, at least anecdotally, is in the Olympics, there's a lot more piggybacking off the existing stories of the Olympians or the teams. Versus in the Super Bowl, there's more telling brand-originating stories. Because I can make up a number of theories as to why you might not do that so much in the Super Bowl. But the storytelling is more contained to the brand rather than the existing narratives around the athletes like [Michael] Phelps, or the gymnastics team, or whomever they're talking about.

Loney: You mentioned Summer versus Winter Olympics. Do companies think differently about the marketing or advertising they might do in each one of those?

Wilson: Generally, the Summer Olympics tends to have a broader audience base. Obviously, it takes place in a warmer climate, so how brands show up is a little bit different in terms of the mood. For the Winter Olympics, it tends to be a smaller audience, but a more premium audience, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. It's usually a more affluent audience, so you get more prestige brands for that reason. And there's a little bit of a greater focus on performance technology from brands in the Winter Games, given the different sports that they're engaging in. Those would be the big differences. But still, both Games have their marquee moments that the brands want to get in on.

Loney: Does the event that maybe the company wants to advertise around, whether it be downhill skiing or hockey, does that matter and come into their thinking? I say that because in the last couple of Olympics, curling has become this unbelievably loved sport here in the United States.

Wilson: What's interesting about how you just put that is how much they talk about in this two-week window. Because it's also, how much do you talk about it outside of this two-week window? Certainly, brands try to cozy up to particular sports. And that can help if you have an audience of people who care about that sport and want to talk about it. Now, if you made yourself the official whatever of curling, how much does that get people to want to be associated with it? At least in the U.S., it's not totally clear how valuable that would be, other than just showing up and being visible in the space as people are watching it.

Considering the ‘USA Brand’

Loney: There's also the attachment to the USA brand. How important is that for the company, when they're thinking about making that investment, to realize that part of this is showing their brand is connected more to the country than maybe some of their rivals?

Wilson: I think that's really important. You see that particularly in the uniforms, like with Ralph Lauren, for example, or Lululemon in the Canadian uniforms, of wanting to be associated with the national brand and supporting the athletes of the nation. I think what's really fascinating is how much more patriotic the Super Bowl seems to have become in recent years. I think Budweiser's ad, for example, in the most recent Super Bowl, of the Clydesdale that has the bald eagle on its back. It was very notably patriotic, I thought, more than past Super Bowls. There's obviously a lot of political discourse around the advertisers and the halftime show and decisions around the games this year. So, it's interesting to me that there has actually become a little bigger emphasis on the nation versus being a global brand.

Something else about the curling point that I wanted to make was that a lot of brands also try to cozy up to those sports in those moments without paying for Olympic sponsorship, via social media. I know you're talking about curling, so I can make this meme about curling that somehow relates to my soap brand or my water bottle brand, or whatever, and kind of hijack that moment to draw some attention to my brand.

Loney: You used the example of Nike earlier. Nike obviously is an athletic brand. But you see, especially in the Summer Olympics, athletes wearing Nike spikes, if they're running on the track. They're not paying for the USA sponsorship, but they have the benefit of having that athlete on retainer as one of their own, and so they're getting the advertising without really even having to foot that extra bill.

Wilson: Oh, absolutely. And brands that are smart about it. I'm thinking about Brooks Running, from the most recent Summer Games, capitalizing on their world champion runners,  using that imagery that they captured in the Olympics, and then putting it in their ads later, too. So, they can actually bring that sponsorship forward and milk it for a longer period of time.

Sponsoring the individual athletes is certainly a way to get in on the Games. I think what's interesting now, too, is how brands are showing up more during the Games in a way that used to be very unsavory. Samsung, in the last Summer Games, the athletes were taking selfies on the medal stand with their Samsung phones. That was a sacred place for many years, being on the medal stand. Now you have Simone Biles with a Samsung phone taking a selfie. I think brands are showing up more with the athletes actually holding and using their goods.

Loney: How much of a challenge is it for a brand — and maybe for a newer brand, like On Cloud — to try and get as much publicity as they can around an event like Olympics? Especially when they are going up against the likes of Nike, Adidas, Brooks, New Balance, so many other more established brands.

Wilson: I think that's, again, being smart on your sponsorships. Especially with On Cloud, for example, just having [Roger] Federer has been huge for them, that they can have the cloud of one, or a handful of athletes, that can really drive that brand awareness and that brand love forward. I think that's a great time to use really scrappy ambush marketing. Maybe you can't afford to be on the medal stand or to have that prime time slot, so where else can you show up? I think that's where you see a lot of advertisers just getting creative with guerilla marketing and using out-of-home marketing geographically near where games are happening. Showing up on on the athletes in some way, in a way that appears very natural. I think brands are getting really creative with that because they have to, because they don't have the budget to outspend the Nikes and the Visas of the world.

Advertising for the Super Bowl

Loney: But usually, when you're talking about doing a Super Bowl or Olympics ad, this is part of a campaign where some of this will end up being boots on the ground, where you'll have your brand being marketed at different venues. Does that occur as much at the Olympics as it may at a Super Bowl or at a World Series or the NCAA Tournament, for example?

Wilson: I would argue, in some ways, it may occur more at the Olympics, from the perspective of creating the foundations for these long-running campaigns. I'm thinking about how using the Olympics can get you associated with certain adjectives around performance and national pride and resilience, and any of the underdogs. I'm even thinking about like Procter & Gamble's “Thank you, moms.” That has been for quite a while around the Games, of using that as an opportunity for storytelling that lives beyond the Games.

The Super Bowl often can be the beginning or the climax of campaigns. CeraVe, last year at the Super Bowl, was a great example of using the game as the climax of their Michael Cera campaign. Or the beginning of a new campaign. But in a lot of ways, it serves as this spike moment. You do also see in the Super Bowl — you create ads that can stand alone for the brand, that contain the whole story or the whole moment, so that we've all seen it and remember it. And I don't need to know everything else before and after it, to appreciate it.

Loney: We also have a Summer Olympics here in the United States, in Los Angeles in 2028. I assume that companies are already thinking about their plans and their ideas of what they're going to do if they want to be a part of that right now.

Wilson: I would hope so, because you do need to plan pretty far in advance. I'm not sure when the Games or the broadcasters actually open the window to sell the various spaces in real estate. Typically, you have a pretty long runway of what you're planning for in terms of what you're going to run and the assets you're going to use. And then, also typically, the media companies hold back a little bit of real estate so they can sell some stuff at a premium and a scramble for those who didn't get in, and maybe want to get in last minute. And that drives more money for the media companies.