Indiantelevision.com Team

(17 August 2007 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: In 2005, when London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics beating stiff competition from several cities, it managed to do so through intense lobbying of a presentation that focused on inspiring the youth to take up Olympic Sports.

This point was made by David Magliano at the Brand score sports marketing forum organized by ESPN Star Sports and Mindshare.

Magliano had led the marketing efforts for London’s bid for the rights to host the 2012 Olympics. When London got started on planning for its presentation, Paris and New York had been running for a few years.

The submission process was detailed. Nine cities originally entered the fray and this was reduced to five countries. Each city then had 45 minutes to make a presentation to a panel of IOC members. After that there was a a voting process for several rounds and the country with the fewest number of votes in each round got eliminated.

Britain had spotters who had to target IOC members to influence. Former PM Tony Blair had a suite at Raffles Hotel and spotters were stationed at the hotel to meet IOC members and encourage them to meet with Blair. He did over 30 meeting in two days.

The second key reason for the success was the presentation. The other cities including New York in video presentations spoke about what made their city so special. However, London focussed on celebrating the making of a young Olympic champion. The great Olympic swimmer Sebastian Coe in his speech before the IOC panel dwelt on the fact that the challenge now is to encourage young people to take up an Olympic sport.

London was shown to be a beacon of youth and so by hosting the Olympics it would send the message to that age group in an effective manner.

He also gave the message that when the IOC has needed someone, London has stepped in. For instance in 1948 other countries were reluctant to host the games due to the recently concluded War.

Tony Blair sent in a video message. He could not be present due to the G6 Summit. In a video presentation he quoted Nelson Mandela as endorsing the event. It also helped that Madrid was eliminated earlier and so those votes were up for grabs. "If a city wants to host the Olympic Games then it needs to have a vision and that must be communicated clearly," he concluded.

Next year the Olympic Games will be held in China. Visa has major plans for that event. Visa International Asia Pacific GM Rajeev Kapoor says that the firm has created a brand ambassador team, Visa programme which has been airing in China for a while now. Jackie Chan is the brand ambassador and in one TVC he is shown participating in different sports
events by using Visa.

The firm has also made four quadrants of users. Some of them are interested in the games and it is to that demographic (the youth) that the firm is targeting its marketing efforts. Visa has also done another TVC that shows the Olympic ideals of honouring an opponent and not humiliating an opponent even though one has defeated him.

Closer home for the cricket world cup, it did a TVC featuring musicians Shankar Ehsaan Loy which relives the glory days of the 1983 triumph. However, when India did badly in the West Indies the campaign had to be shelved. Now it has come back on after India beat England.

For New Zealand it showed a girl who's playing rugby and score. She then goes back to working a simple job and the message is that through Visa an ordinary person gets to live her dream. This TVC was done to capitalize on the Rugby World Cup.

He notes that sports is apolitical and agnostic. It allows Visa to connect with customers in an emotional way. Visa’s sports campaigns are often integrated with general thematic campaigns. Visa uses the celebrating sports platform.