It’s time for another review of the best and worst of the Olympic Games marketing. This isn’t a complete list but some of my initial impressions based on reading and what I’m seeing here on site in Paris too. Let’s start with the winners.
Best of Paris 2024 Olympic Marketing:
- The Openness Medal by Samsung – Rather than being another brand trying to celebrate champions, this wonderful idea challenges Gen Z to be vulnerable and share their failures openly on TikTok. This is exactly what the Olympics is all about.
- Louis Vuitton Brand Sponsorship – It would be hard to name a bigger potential brand winner than LV at the Paris 2024 Olympics. From the central role the brand took in the Opening Ceremonies to all their promotions featuring athletes, the brand is blanketing Paris … and winning.
- Airbnb Brand Sponsorship – We are staying in an apartment here in Paris for the Olympics and it was the natural choice. It’s a great spot right on the Seine close to everything and Airbnb has been using the fact that Paris is a very apartment-centric city to promote it’s offering with a combination of clever ads and incentive promos for athletes.
- Coca-Cola Magic – The longstanding brand sponsorship of Coca-Cola continues as they remain one of few brands that didn’t miss the memo about what the Olympics are meant to represent. This ad is signature Coke, and for anyone who loves the Olympics – this will satisfy you.
- Deloitte First Effect – A global consulting brand probably seems like an unlikely worldwide Olympic sponsor since it’s not a consumer brand. That’s part of what makes Deloitte’s choice so clever. There are many other reasons. Their clients and potential clients are sponsors. They are positioning themselves as a champion of “firsts.” Their hospitality will likely be a boon for them to wine and dine their clients at the Games and it elevates their brand above their largest competitors. Whomever was behind the strategy of this are clearly non-obvious thinkers.
Worst of Paris 2024 Olympic Marketing:
- Nike “Am I A Bad Person?” Ad – The first time I saw this ad, my gut reaction was that it was simultaneously powerful and terrible. Powerful because it’s a great message for a challenger brand NOT related to the Olympics. Terrible because it celebrates everything the Olympics aren’t about … winning at all costs. As the Games started and stories emerged of epic rivalries AND friendships between so many competitors, this ad plays worse and worse. As far as Olympic marketing goes, this is as bad as it can get.
- Google “Dear Sydney” Ad – A little girl idolizes an Olympic athlete and dreams of competing with her in the future so … she uses AI to write a fan letter? Tech journalist Shelly Palmer had the best take on this ad, which I agree with, that it made him want to scream. This is indeed everything we should NOT be celebrating or asking AI to do for us.
- Paris 2024 River Seine Cleanup Communications – While this isn’t really a marketing campaign, the organizers for Paris 2024 spent more than a year promoting their BIG ambitions around cleaning the river enough to host swimming events there. Now it seems that will be a high-profile failure. Doubling down on such a difficult and unlikely goal seems like a flawed communications objective from the start. Why not instead promote how “clean” the river will be in advance of an Opening Ceremonies hosted entirely on the river and then declare victory when people enjoy themselves and nothing smells like sewage? The river is undeniably cleaner, and this could have been a big victory for Paris, if they had set a realistic goal in the first place.
