Billions of dollars that will be spent on Olympics-related advertising — directly by sponsors, and indirectly by marketers seeking to bask in the reflected glow — and this could smooth the bumpy ride the American advertising industry is now enduring.

There are fears that the economic problems in the American economy may lead marketers to cut budgets for next year. Swooping in to save the situation come the Olympic campaigns.

Universal McCann media agency has made a prediction that sees a 5.5% increase in worldwide advertising spending next year compared with 2007.

The recent Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report from PricewaterhouseCoopers is forecasting that ad spending in China in six major media will increase to $22.5 billion in 2011, from $13 billion this year.

The Olympic torch relay, scheduled to begin in March, is planned as the longest ever. The sponsors are a Chinese company, Lenovo, along with Coca-Cola and Samsung.

Lenovo has cunningly worked the symbol into a complete range of products inspired by the games. The first of these products is the notebook Xiang, shown here, that has the same graphic patterns found on the Olympic Torch.

The competition among agencies for work for Chinese advertisers is almost a separate Olympic Games.

JWT, part of the WPP Group, has announced it has landed five assignments to create campaigns in China to appear during the Olympics.

Three are sponsors, Lenovo, China Unicom and the Yili Group, which is China’s biggest dairy.

The remaining two assignments are from Chinese companies that are not official Olympic sponsors but will run campaigns in the country during the Games One is Anta Sports Products, which sells athletic footwear and apparel. The other is from Lilang, a maker of men’s wear.
Source: New York Times