Sports Big Business No. 2782, welcome to pay attention to the leading sports industry information platform
Wen | Wang Feng
Sports big business reporter
From February 2 to 4, the highly anticipated Beijing Winter Olympic Torch Relay, Opening Ceremony and Ignition Ceremony will be staged. Beijing Daily revealed that the Beijing Municipal Government will follow the olympic convention and take temporary management measures for advertising facilities in a certain area from January 17.
It is reported that from January 17 to March 13, the Beijing Winter Olympic games venues and their surrounding areas (within about 500 meters), non-competition venues and their surrounding areas (within about 500 meters), contracted hotels settled by sponsoring companies, some airports, railway stations and trains, some subways, light railways, some major urban roads, highways and some public trams and stations will become temporary management areas.
According to the regulations of the Beijing Municipal Government, the advertising facilities such as light boxes, neon lights, electronic display devices, and display boards set up in the above-mentioned areas such as buildings and structures, bodywork, carriage interiors, and the internal and external spaces of traffic stations can only be used for advertising by Olympic global partners and sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the landscape display of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and the advertisements of non-sponsors should be removed.
During the competition, any enterprise that sets up outdoor advertising facilities in the temporary management area without authorization or publishes advertisements whose content does not meet the requirements of the regulations will be handled by the relevant law enforcement departments in accordance with the law.
This regulation can be said to be a small-scale replica of the scene of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. At that time, the LG advertisements of the bus stop signs on Beijing Chang'an Avenue were all replaced by Samsung, the bus body advertisers were mostly Coca-Cola, and Omega's timers were all over the important transportation hubs in Beijing.
Omega timer
However, unlike 14 years ago, most of the sponsors of the Beijing Winter Olympics are from the mainland, and the advertisements around the Winter Olympic Games will also present a large number of Chinese styles, which reflects China's rapid economic development and increasingly strong national strength. To say more, due to factors such as epidemic prevention, the audience of this competition may be relatively fixed, and it has not given non-sponsoring companies an "opportunity" to ambush.
Olympic ambush marketing: a feud between brand owners
At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Li Ningfei lit the main Olympic torch, making the world remember the "Prince of Gymnastics" and his brand. The next day, Li Ning's stock price rose nearly 5% at one point, embarrassing Adidas, the official partner of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Ambush Marketing originally refers to a "illegal" business behavior of non-sponsoring enterprises to carry out marketing activities associated with the sponsored object, so that consumers mistakenly believe that they are official sponsors to share official sponsorship rights, with obvious parasiticity. With the strict protection of the relevant sponsorship rights and interests, the marketing methods of non-sponsors have also become more diversified, the concept of ambush marketing has gradually been generalized, and the legitimate marketing methods held using the theme related to the event have also been covered during and before the specific sponsorship activities.
The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics overhauled the market development program, and the sponsorship system and the implementation of franchising were financially overwhelming, making it the first Olympic Games to be fully funded by social forces. But with the advent of advertising exclusivity, companies that failed their bids had to move to more "creative" marketing methods.
In 1996, Reebok paid more than $20 million in sponsorship for the Atlanta Olympics, but was ruthlessly ambushed by Nike and Puma during the game.
Nike opened the "Nike Center" next to the Olympic Village to make a big event, and distributed Nike lanyard ticket holders to the audience around the venue. According to the survey results, more than 70% of the audience at that time thought Nike was a partner in the Olympic Games.
On the other hand, Jamaican sprinter Linford Christie wore eye-catching Puma contact lenses (with a Puma logo in the center of each lens) at the pre-race press conference, and Linford's photo of wearing Puma's "beautiful pupil" quickly spread and became famous ever since.
Linford wears Puma's beautiful pupils
Since then, in order to defend the rights of sponsors, the Olympic Games have developed the convention mentioned at the beginning of this article. Before the start of each Olympic Games, non-sponsors are prohibited from entering the host city around the major venues and key areas.
At the same time, with the development of the Internet, the main battlefield of ambush marketing has gradually shifted to online.
During the 2012 London Olympics, Nike launched the "Live Your Great" marketing campaign in 25 countries around the world, intensively disseminating a series of copywriting for Chinese athletes. Although Adidas is the official partner of the London Olympics, the "Live Your Great" marketing campaign has led many unknown viewers to mistakenly believe that Nike is the main player.
Nike "Live Your Greatness" series of copywriters
Internet giant Google is also a "habitual offender" who "rubs the heat of the Olympic Games". Google has never sponsored the Olympics, but every major event will make a connection by updating the homepage graffiti. During the previous Winter Olympic Games, the cartoon character icons on Google's homepage are surprisingly consistent with the events of the Winter Olympics: when the main event of the Winter Olympics is skiing, cartoon characters for skiing will appear on Google searches.
Through the homepage doodle, Google not only saved tens of millions of dollars in sponsorship fees, but also made hundreds of millions of netizens mistakenly believe that Google and the Winter Olympics have a cooperative relationship.
Google Sochi Winter Olympics Doodle
In 2016, the IOC made changes to Clause 40, which is dedicated to sponsor protection, allowing non-Olympic sponsors not to use signed Olympians to advertise during the Rio Olympics. This also makes the contradiction between the official sponsor of the Olympic Games and the individual sponsor of the athlete gradually intensified, and "Clause 40" directly affects the personal commercial interests of the athletes. Phelps, Bolt and many other sports superstars have expressed the idea of amending "Clause 40" in various ways.
In July 2019, the IOC Executive Committee amended Article 3 of article 40 of the Olympic Charter. The revised content reads: "Athletes, team staff and other team staff participating in the Olympic Games may use their names, photographs or sports events for advertising during the Olympic Games in accordance with the principles established by the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee." "This makes the exposure of athletes' individual sponsorships during the Olympics no longer strictly limited." Last year's Tokyo Olympics was also the first event after the revision of the "Article 40" of the Olympic Charter, and the details of the brand exposure of gold medal athletes can be found in the "Tokyo 2020 Olympic Sports Brand Value List" produced by Sports Big Business.
Compared with previous editions, the situation at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is more complicated, not only to consider potential ambush marketing, but also to balance the rights and interests of existing sponsors. At the Winter Olympics, two well-known companies in the beer and petrochemical categories each have sponsorship rights. Yanjing Beer and Tsingtao Beer are the official sponsors of the Beijing Winter Olympics, while PetroChina and Sinopec jointly occupy the official partner seats.
The "positive rigidity" of The rivals yili and Mengniu is more interesting. Yili is the official partner of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and Mengniu has become an IOC partner through its business relationship with Coca-Cola. As the opening day approaches, the battle between the two brands for consumer minds will continue to escalate.
Erik kim wins the Winter Olympics advertisement
BMW was fined 50,000 for olympic super talk
The Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee has joined hands with various parties to crack down on Olympic-related infringements
During the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, BMW's official Weibo posted 10 promotional content with "#Watching the Olympic Games#", and was later fined 50,000 yuan by the Beijing Chaoyang District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, which is equivalent to paying at least 5,000 yuan for each ambush marketing microblog.
Although BMW argued that the Weibo copy and poster were designed, produced and published by Meituo Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., the hot search term using "#Watching the Olympic Games" was authorized by the company's media procurement agency, Shanghai Leo Bernard Co., Ltd., Beijing Branch, after communicating with Sina Weibo. However, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee confirmed that BMW did not obtain an authorization to use the Olympic symbols for commercial purposes, thus violating the second paragraph of Article 4 of the Regulations on the Protection of Olympic Symbols (2018).
Fortunately, BMW did not use this publicity to obtain relevant economic benefits, otherwise the regulatory authorities would be fined additionally according to the illegal business turnover.
BMW administrative penalty information
Coincidentally, douban and hollywood companies have also been fined in cash by the market supervision department for unauthorized use of the Olympic symbol for commercial purposes.
During the Tokyo Olympic Games, Douban illegally used terms and symbols such as "Tokyo Olympic Games", "Olympic Games" and "Five Rings Pattern" on Weibo to promote it, and was fined 30,000 yuan by the Chaoyang District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Beijing Municipality; Haoliyou Food was fined 115,000 yuan by the Market Supervision Bureau of Langfang City, Hebei Province.
At present, the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games and the opening ceremony page of the Rio Olympic Games in Douban Station have removed the Olympic-related signs.
After being punished, Douban removed the Olympic symbol in the station
Li Fuying, director of the Legal Affairs Department of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency that the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, as the right holder, usually makes preliminary representations with the relevant parties after discovering clues about ambush marketing. When a company infringes on Olympic intellectual property rights, the Market Development Department usually comes forward to deal with it, and if there is a violation in the process of using the Olympic Symbol for non-commercial purposes, the Legal Affairs Department will deal with it.
Apparently, the Weibo executives of BMW, Douban, and Haoliyou received a warning to delete the blog during the Tokyo Olympic Games but did not correct it, and were eventually fined 5-6 figures.
Compared with the time-of-game monitoring and post-game fines of the Tokyo Olympic Games, the online marketing behavior during the Beijing Winter Olympics will face stricter supervision. Since December last year, the Market Development Department of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee has signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on Brand Protection for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games with major Internet media platforms and e-commerce platforms such as Kuaishou, ByteDance, Alibaba, Weibo and Tencent to jointly combat Olympic-related infringements.
On the basis of accurate identification, the above-mentioned Internet platforms have set up a special complaint channel for Olympic intellectual property rights protection, and the clues of Austrian-related infringement are handled offline within 48 hours.
It is undeniable that ambush marketing has existed in the history of marketing for a long time, but there is a view that experts never carry out ambush marketing, because consumers often have a negative attitude towards the behavior of brand rubbing heat. Aiming at the brand advocates telling its own story well, using the big environment, focusing on the deep connection between the brand and sports, will be able to win during the competition.
Note: The images used in this article are from the Internet