China’s two largest websites are having a battle — nothing physical — over Olympic advertising sales rights.

In one corner, Sohu, the Internet content sponsor of the Beijing Games, claims that online ads from other sponsors with the Beijing Olympics logo can only appear on its website. As our illustration shows Charles Zhang for Sohu signed an agreement to that effect in Beijing, in November, 2005.

In the opposite corner Sina says it plans to boost its Olympic content — no law against that — and also its development and marketing to attract all kinds of advertisers. And, of course, most of these will be Olympic advertisers.

Sina and its partners have also contested Sohu’s claim of exclusivity. They say Sohu’s sponsorship only entitles it to create the official website for BOCOG and to use the Beijing Games logo of a running man in its marketing.

Olympic organizers have confirmed Sohu’s marketing rights as an Olympic sponsor, such as its eligibility to use the Olympic logo. It has also promised crackdowns on any company that tries to establish or imply an association with the Games without paying any royalties.

Sina has since toned down its ‘Olympic marketing’ publicity campaign.

Olympic marketing officials have yet to confirm that Sohu.com owns the exclusive rights to carry online ads from other Olympic sponsors.

Sina says it plans to deploy a 450-strong team to cover the Games in Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish and Arabic.

Sohu has dismissed Sina’s strategies. It uses the analogy of ‘a regular army to a small band of guerrillas’ when comparing itself to Sina in terms of Olympic news coverage. That is a pretty dangerous analogy to use. Guerrillas have hammered regular armies many times. Read up on Chinese history to see some star examples.

All of which is reminiscent of the Australian Olympics. Qantas was not an official sponsor. But no Australian can tell you what airline paid for that privelege. All the advertising from Qantas seemed to suggest that it was the official carrier. Without directly saying so to the 3.8 billion viewers who watched the games on television. And the advertisements were pretty much all Qantas.

The official sponsor was Ansett Airlines. Which has now gone out of business. Qantas is the official Olympic carrier for the Beijing Games. Not all of the action at an Olympic Games is of a sporting nature.
Source: China Daily