Before you know it, the Paris Olympics are entering the 100-day countdown.
Thousands of miles away in France, a Chinese-style romance is being staged. Yi used 800 drones to send Chinese fans' blessings to the Olympic athletes in advance, lighting up the night sky of Paris.
Regardless of whether the French in Paris are ready or not, sponsors from various countries have gradually made a posture of "running" at any time, waking up the Olympic seeds in the hearts of consumers in different ways.
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Text / Hajime Soda
What was Yili, the first shot of marketing in Paris?
After 100 years of hosting the Olympic Games in 1900 and 1924, the Olympic Games have returned to the hometown of Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games. 」
When the world's anticipation for the Paris event is roaring, the hot battle of Olympic marketing has also ushered in a comprehensive upgrade.
In March, Miravia, a cross-border e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba Group, became a sponsor of the Paris Olympics, and in the same month, Decathlon, the official sponsor of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, announced a new global brand with a new logo and purpose, which is also seen as a brand move to capitalize on the Olympics.
Previously, on the one-year countdown to the Paris Olympics, the French luxury giant LVMH Group announced that it would become a senior sponsor of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with a sponsorship fee of up to 150 million euros, and a number of its brands will support the Olympic Games, and Airbnb, as a global partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, even launched a Coubertin House reservation service.
Playing a marketing mix at different points in time is the practice of leading Olympic sponsors and brands. Looking at China, as the "Official Dairy Product of the Chinese Sports Delegation for the 2024 Olympic Games", Yili held a 100-day countdown conference with the theme of "Double Yili to Paris Together", and announced that it would provide a comprehensive guarantee for the Chinese sports delegation to Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games while delivering new Olympic products.
At the same time, Yili also officially announced the cooperation with the Chinese national shooting team, and invited Xu Haifeng, China's first Olympic gold medalist, and Li Na, a famous Chinese tennis player, to witness together.
In fact, the first shot of marketing for the World Sports Series often comes from the top companies in various industries in the sponsorship list, and their marketing style represents the industry vane. Yili also showed the carefulness of the veteran Olympic sponsors, who were not only able to complete the debut of Olympic products at the important moment of the last few hundred days of the Olympic Games, but also linked legendary athletes and fans with such a huge resource mobilization ability to realize the activation of sponsorship rights and interests in various dimensions, reflecting Yili's social responsibility.
Behind the first shot of Paris marketing, it is not only Yili's help to the Olympic journey, but also the brand hope of cheering for the Olympic athletes and setting off a new call for national sports, which also means that Yili once again takes the lead in the world sports stage.
Sincerity + differentiation strategy, the key to playing Olympic marketing
The business behavior of continuously strengthening the layout of important sports resources is becoming the marketing standard of today's top brands. Especially in a sports year like 2024, sports marketing is undoubtedly the focus of attention of companies and brands in all walks of life.
Compared with other fields, the dairy industry itself represents the concept of healthy living, which is quite in line with the core of sports. In recent years, the advent of the era of national health has greatly improved the national health awareness, and the potential of the dairy market has been infinitely expanded. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the annual milk output in 2023 will be 41.97 million tons, an increase of 6.7% over the previous year, and the output will hit a record high, and the growth rate will also remain at a high level.
In this context, the sports marketing of dairy companies needs to be differentiated.
At the conference site, Yili Group delivered a number of customized products to the Chinese sports delegation, covering a variety of Yili's products, which will be fully put into the Olympic service guarantee supply, helping Chinese athletes to participate in the sports event 100 days later, and also announcing the official opening of the "Paris Sprint Mode".
As the dairy sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and the sole official dairy partner of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Yili has been accompanied by China's sports industry for a long time and has been unremittingly prepared for the Olympic cause in the process of growing up with the Olympic Games. It not only fully supports the long-term training and preparation of the Chinese sports delegation for the Summer and Winter Olympics, but also provides a steady stream of nutritional support for tens of thousands of Chinese Olympic athletes.
Spanning nearly 20 years of hand-in-hand, this long-term marketing strategy also shows the difference of Yili's Olympic marketing, that is, Yili has always focused on Chinese athletes, and has accompanied China's sports industry from a deeper level through multi-dimensional assistance to athletes.
There is no doubt that Chinese athletes are full of competitiveness. Whether it is the shooting team known as the "youth generation", the swimming team of the "Golden Age", or the table tennis competition for three guarantees and five guarantees, the diving dream team hitting the eight golds, and the women's basketball team hitting the podium, etc., all of them are full of public expectations. It is understood that at present, Chinese athletes have advanced to the top three in the world in as many as 21 events, and will become the most competitive collective in the Paris Olympics.
In March this year, Gracenote, a subsidiary of Nielsen, a world-renowned market monitoring and data analysis company, announced the virtual medal table prediction for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and Chinese athletes are expected to win 37 gold medals in the Paris Olympics, mainly from diving, shooting, swimming, weightlifting, table tennis and other events, and are expected to tie the United States for first place in the total number of gold medals.
For the Chinese people, they have always had a special national sentiment for the Olympic Games, and it is based on the insight and empathy for the deep feelings and deep love of the public that enterprises and brands can leave a good impression in the hearts of the people.
For Yili, behind the enhancement of brand value, it is more dependent on Yili's practical actions to practice "Olympic quality" products, demonstrating Yili's sincere attitude towards consumers.
Behind the long-termism of Olympic marketing, there is Yili's value pursuit
Each industry has its own characteristics, and when it comes to the sports industry, "long-termism" is the particularity of its development.
In the world of sports, there is no shortage of "long-termism". Behind this insistence, it is often reflected in a clear understanding of the goal, not only to believe that the goal can be achieved in the end, but also to know that the goal cannot be achieved overnight.
Nowhere is this more directly evident than in the top athletes. Countless athletes who have gone down in history have finally broken through their own and even human limits in the perseverance day after day. And this spirit of "long-termism" can also gradually change from a person's pursuit of goals to the persistence of a group of people, an organization or even an enterprise.
Keeping the clouds open and seeing the moon is a prerequisite for it to finally be able to achieve the purpose of investment, but fortunately, Yili is patient enough.
Since 2005, Yili Group has signed a contract with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee to officially become the dairy sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and is the only dairy enterprise in China that meets the standards of the Olympic Games and provides services for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and has accompanied the Chinese delegation to the 2012 London Olympic Games, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, especially as the sole official dairy partner of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Yili became the world's first health food company to meet the standards of the "Double Olympic Games".
At this point, Yili officially embarked on this Olympic road, and in the years since, Yili has not stopped. From the signing of athletes and the Olympic national team, to the continuous promotion of products with new Olympic standards, from the upgrading of brand proposition, to the holding of large-scale and innovative Olympic theme activities for many times. It is also from supporting Chinese athletes to compete in the arena, and conveying the concept of sports to the lives of all Chinese people.
Those who can enter the Olympic family of the Olympic Games are those top enterprises in the industry that are highly consistent with the Olympic spirit. Behind helping top athletes realize their heroic dreams, they are also looking for ways for the public to resonate with sportsmanship.
Now, with the launch of "Yiqi to Paris" under the landmark of the Chinese Olympic Games, Yili has once again added a unique Olympic awareness and atmosphere to every ordinary person, and continues to promote the progress of national sports.
In the Olympic stage, gold medals and top performers are important, but how to maximize the use of event IP resources and maximize the effect of Olympic marketing still needs to focus on the billions of ordinary people affected by the Olympics, how they understand health and competition, and how to reshape the concept of sports, so that the "Olympic Games" not only belong to Mount Olympus and its heroes, but also to every ordinary citizen.
In the era when Yili has been accompanying China's Olympic story for a long time, these concepts have been implemented throughout. The Olympic narrative is a manifestation of the pursuit of brand value, in which the cooperation between dairy enterprises and the Olympic Games is not only a marketing act, but also represents a social responsibility of national enterprises and the transmission of sportsmanship, which has a wider social significance.
The torch of the new era has been lit, and the heroic stories and business wrestles belonging to the Olympics are about to become the focus of the world's attention in the coming time.
*Image source: @Paris2024 Official