Sporting events often get companies laying on the commercial tie-ins to take advantage of the ‘feel good’ factor. Plus, of course, the hoped-for massive viewing figures. Which are pretty amazing. More than a billion Chinese are expected to watch, plus half-million international visitors and a worldwide viewing audience of, say, four billion.

Tom Doctoroff, China chief executive officer of JWT, an international advertising company, described the activity surrounding the commercial tie-ins with the games as an ‘orgy’ and said, ‘every single company under the sun has, or is preparing, some kind of Olympic pitch.’

Beijing is spending $2.6 billion — this is only half of what Athens spent for the 2004 Games — to construct Olympic venues.

But it is spending $200 billion to give the capital a major pre-Games makeover and this includes permanent upgrades to the city’s transportation and communication infrastructures. Which, in fairness, could do with a bit of a lift.

The sponsorship program developed for Beijing 2008 is the large and comprehensive and ad campaigns from Olympic sponsors such as Visa, Coca-Cola and Lenovo hav already statrted.

The Beijing Olympics, in a sense, is the first major attempt for China to show the world that it is progressive and innovative and that it cares, perhaps not yet enough but the effort ir there, for the people and the environment.

On July 13, 2001, the very same evening Beijing was celebrating being awarded the 2008 Olympic Games, Coca-Cola’s Beijing plant ran off 30,000 bottles, each wrapped in a golden cover reading ‘Our Congratulations on the Olympics’. This is serious big time stuff.

According to a recent study, 68% of Chinese sports fans are more likely to buy brands that sponsor the Olympic Games than those that don’t.

Volkswagen’s director of Olympic marketing, Anthony Laver, estimates that in the 12 months before the Games begin, official sponsors will spend as much as $2 billion on advertising in China alone.

To truly succeed in the Chinese market, both local and multinational companies must find ways to engage the 100 million young affluent Chinese consumers who have the money for premium brands.

And that is where we diverge from the Asia Online article and look a little askance at the money being spent. The reason is one word: ‘football’.

Around the world surveys have shown that the under 30s are less and less interested in the Olympics and more and more interested in football. Or, if you will, online games. It is going to be very sad if the people who watch the games, who are enthusiastic about the games, who relate to the games are an older age group. If this turns out to be the case, this will be the last massively commercial Olympic Games of them all
Source: Daniel Allen in Asian Times Online