The Beijing Winter Olympics kicked off on February 4 and will wind up on the 20th. Olympics offers a powerful platform for brands to engage with consumers with greater opportunities for brand awareness to a global audience.
The spirit of the games also aligns with 360-degree brand marketing missions that support athletes and competition with human progress. Yet when one looks at the vast majority of marketing and branding associated with the Games, relatively few brands have fully embraced the opportunity of celebrating both together. Alex Chang, head of sports marketing for Samsung Electronics America stated that “The Olympics are a special moment in time where the world comes together to celebrate human achievement”.
The Olympic Games have become an important part of how we talk about our brand. “The Olympics are recognized for being very inclusive, it’s something that our company and brand stand for. Each company needs to consider their brand values and stance on certain issues.”—Ricardo Fort, VP of global sports partnerships for Coca-Cola.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is providing more opportunities for people to connect and interact with the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 and fellow fans than ever before.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is marking the milestone with the launch of its ‘#StrongerTogether’ campaign, showcasing the Olympic ideals of solidarity and the power of sport to unite.
Winter Olympics viewers and Broadcast Technologies
The Olympic Winter Games 2022 are set to be the most immersive yet, thanks to innovative broadcast technologies, record-breaking hours of coverage, and a host of digital initiatives curated to connect more people in more ways to the Olympics. NBC Sports says 16 million viewers tuned in to watch the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony across multiple platforms on Friday.
To take immersive production to an even higher level, a collaboration with Worldwide Olympic Partner Intel will see OBS capture, produce and distribute the Olympic Winter Games in live 8K Virtual Reality (VR) for the first time. Through a much improved, smoother user experience, Olympic fans (via participating Rights-Holding Broadcasters (RHBs)) will be able to watch the action in higher quality, true-to-life VR.
In addition, OBS has collaborated with Worldwide Olympic Partner OMEGA to provide more real-time data than at previous Games to give viewers and commentators an unprecedented level of analytical insight and engagement as the action unfolds.
This includes extending the live speed measurement for the downhill events in alpine skiing, allowing viewers around the world to be blown away by the astonishing speeds Olympic skiers achieve, and offering additional “jump” data for figure skating, freestyle skiing/snowboard halfpipe, and ski jumping, with motion sensors and computer vision analysis helping to capture real-time data such as speed, height, length and duration to provide new levels of jump analysis.
For curling and speed skating, OBS is collaborating with Worldwide Olympic Partner Alibaba to use its leading-edge Cloud solution to seamlessly deliver unique multi-camera replays for viewers around the world in seconds.
Brands showcasing and connecting with their audience through Winter Olympics
The aim of the marketers should be to connect with the Olympics audience through personalization and localization, both during the games and the months and years in between events. At the heart of the campaign is a “people-centric” approach, taking center stage as the main focal point for digital-led content and engagement.
Chinese brands have certainly taken notice, growing their sponsorship spend by 8.9% annually between 2015 and 2019, with more than 250 subsequent Olympics-related deals in 2020-2021, matching and then surpassing the popularity of esports sponsorship in China. Then there are sponsorships of specific teams and athletes, where global brands have been more involved, such as Audi’s partnership with China’s skating and skiing teams.
How can MOCA help marketers?
Considering how brands are recognizing the value of the Winter Olympics to connect with a wider audience there is a chance of huge competition to grab the consumer’s attention. MOCA continues to help advertisers to explore new user touch points and bring fresh and new placement and inventories such as MiChat, Resso, Snack Video, Mangatoon, etc to advertisers to expand their coverage. MOCA is becoming one of the most trusted and reliable partners for marketers to provide one-stop service in improving efficiency and effective communications across all OEMs and top publishers, to help advertisers to reach the target audience and to be the top of mind brand.