Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Comments on Olympics and IMC

Essay for Sports/Business publication

Some enjoy sports marketing in two flavors. In 2008 the “sport” of Presidential elections was in full swing and worth watching for lessons in marketing and communications for my students at Northwestern University. . The other 2008 major and equally expensive sporting event worth watching and learning from is or are the 2008 World Olympics.

Over many centuries, the ancient and even the modern Olympics have demonstrated the dedication of individuals, governments, organizations, corporations and nations to the serious and valued marketing of the Games. As in political campaigns you will notice that the use of every possible tactic in marketing was employed with most incorporating an integrated strategy to fully gain audience, stakeholder and customer allegiance. The Olympics are a great show of fully developed product, corporate and national branding.

Some of the lessons of Olympic marketing (especially for those of you who cannot afford to be an official sponsor) that I have shared with my students and audiences include low cost but high dedication strategies and tactics (hopefully you can use the ideas for the 2012 Olympics in London and the 2016 Olympics we expect to be in Chicago).

1. Prepare your “Unofficial Olympic Strategy” to work exactly with your existing marketing and corporate strategies. Link the timing, energy and messaging to the Olympic cycle.
2. Do not use ambush marketing or other unethical and illegal uses of the Olympic rings and values, but instead simply link your own sprit of business dedication and to the Olympic spirit and history.
3. Consider your loyal current customers, employees and other stakeholders with opportunities to reach out to new customers.
4. Celebrate the Olympics in your business location, make a contribution to the American effort, donate product to Olympic training or even sporting events for the very young aspirants in your parks and school. Connect to local or regional Olympic contenders and finalists in your market. Consider hosting events to celebrate the Olympics at your business. Offer tickets to the Olympics or offer Olympic linked prizes.
5. In other words, link your business to the values, spirit and activities of the Olympics in a way that celebrates your support for the athletes, the audiences and the concept of the Olympics.

Despite my affinity to the Olympics and to people of China, I did not realize that I would find myself carrying the Olympic Torch in Lijiang China to “live the dream.” As a guest of Olympic and Torch sponsors Samsung Electronics, I was generously invited to the far western province of China and the city of Lijiang to join with over 33,000 global citizens running in hundreds of cities this year to carry the Olympic Torch. When I returned to Chicago and wanted to extend my experience in carrying the Torch, I literally passed that Torch to my students and my business audiences. In June I brought home the Torch to Northwestern (don’t worry; it is the flame that we pass along). The metaphor of the Torch has been one of the longest existing brand representations in civilization.

And with the Torch and symbol of the flame, I brought to my family, students, colleagues and audiences another example of the brilliance of the human mind to create and perpetuate brand symbols of ideas, people and products that can even last centuries.

Two major marketing IMC events in 2008

Preview of JIMC (Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications publisher’s essay for Fall 2008
As this Journal goes to press, this is a spectacular year for anyone with an ounce or metric measure of interest in communications. It is in this year that I I have pointed my students, colleagues and audiences in the direction of two significant global events. Each event was widely open to both professionals, diverse and general audiences. Each event was also free; only requiring the commitment of time and some intellectual energy to watch and learn.

The first event that caught my personal and professional attention was the U.S. Presidential election campaign for 2008. Naturally, it started many months before but, as a fan and an academic author on political communications, I welcome the political season.

This year, I heard questions from the press regarding the early horserace; in the most contested party primary in recent history. With a presentation slide entitled “We call them Hillary, Barack, Fred, Mitt, John 1 and John 2, etc. (if you are searching for last names you can feel the pain of the candidates who did not establish their identities). From a more contemporary IMC point of view, the election offered some of the most interesting signs of a constantly evolving form of IMC and communications.

Political campaigns have long represented the most strategic use of every communication tool available. This year’s election added some new ways to link with audiences With a more intensive use of the internet, to not only raise funds (2004) or build an information site (2000) but, in 2008, to connect directly with voter and other highly relevant “communities.”


Politically-oriented, and IMC educated graduate student, Jesse Greenberg and I found that the Obama campaign built one of the earliest and most voter-oriented sites. The Obama Web site included twice as many links as Hillary’s did to other on-line communities. These communities were based on race, sexual preference, religion, age and other unifying concerns about which people gather to have conversations, including those about politics. The links between sites, in a Facebook fashion, created a new sense of community, and implied a form of mutual endorsement. Even John McCain “got it” when, post primary, he re-launched his website with a spectacular demonstration of reaching out to more than the proverbial “base.”

Greenberg and I argue that the opportunity for access to the candidates, via the tools of Web 2.0, enables a more open and progressive form of political access. This access offers voters a greater connection to the candidates’ ideas and actions. In our minds, the leverage of Web 2.0 technologies marks a new contribution the democratic process. This is an important departure from the historical form of access , which had only been available to the wealthiest and most generous donors. You know the rest of the story.

The second event still lingers in your short-term memory: The 2008 Olympics held in China. China has become one of my favorite countries. Over the past five years I have travelled frequently (enough so that I don’t have to pay the airlines’ profit center mistake of extra bag charges when I fly) to teach at a half dozen Chinese MBA programs including Sun Yat-sen, Jinan, Xiamen, Nanjing, Hunan, and Hangzhou Universities. I have rooted for the American Olympic heroes (what else could you call these dedicated men and women, who employ greater discipline than any of us?). Based on a series of talks in China that my colleague Bobby Calder and my friend, the former Governor of Wisconsin, Scott McCallum, I was already telling my audiences to watch the Olympics. Our work at Northwestern allowed us to teach a lesson for business to use IMC in extraordinary ways including building and protecting product, corporate and national brands.
The Olympics demonstrate the dedication of individuals, corporations and nations to the serious and valued marketing of the Games. Again, every possible tactic in marketing was employed; with most incorporating an integrated strategy to fully gain audience, stakeholder and customer allegiance. What a great show of fully-developed branding.

Despite my affinity to the brand and people of China, I did not realize that I would find myself carrying the Olympic Torch in Lijiang China, “One World, One Dream.” In June I brought home the Torch to Northwestern (don’t worry; it is the flame that we pass along). And with the flame, I brought to my family, students, colleagues and audiences another example of the brilliance of the human mind to create and perpetuate brand symbols of ideas, people and products that can even last centuries. Long live free elections, the Olympics and IMC!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

"Fat American comes to Lijiang" My favorite headline

I wasn't happy with the title that showed up in China. This was not the title for the original article in the Chicago Tribune. Still it reminds me to stay fit.


Fat American comes to Lijiang
Lijiang, China
Flag of China
Monday, Jun 09, 2008 23:07

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Good to see the Olympic sponsors getting some leverage with their marketing.



www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-olympictorchjun10,0,3796738.story
chicagotribune.com
Northwestern professor to carry university name during run with Olympic torch in China

By Jodi S. Cohen

Tribune reporter

7:22 PM CDT, June 9, 2008

As a Northwestern University communications professor, Clarke Caywood knows something about effective marketing.

So when he carries the Olympic torch Tuesday in China, he isn't going to miss an opportunity to promote the Northwestern brand. Though Olympic officials rejected his idea to hold a Medill School of Journalism banner, Caywood still plans to carry something with the Northwestern name.

He also plans to use the experience as a marketing opportunity when he returns to the United States, perhaps by starting his classes and corporate lectures with pictures of him running with the torch.

"What professor wouldn't like Olympic background music when they open their lectures?" said Caywood, who teaches in the integrated marketing communications program.

"When I give talks to industry and professional organizations, I will certainly put some of this in there as a metaphor for high achievement," he said from Lijiang, China.

Caywood, who has been a visiting professor at several Chinese universities, was invited to be a torchbearer by Samsung Corp., one of the relay sponsors. There will be more than 2,300 torchbearers during the flame's remaining 41/2-month journey to the August Olympics in Beijing, according to Samsung.

The relay has not been the "Journey of Harmony" that Chinese officials envisioned. In San Francisco, London, Paris and elsewhere, the relay was marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations and protests over China's human rights record. The relay also was suspended to mourn China's earthquake victims.

Caywood views the protests as a shrewd communications technique.

"The people involved with the Tibetan issue have a right to find an ongoing event and try to use it as a way to get their story told," he said. "In marketing, we sometimes recommend that, a co-branding."

Northwestern professor Tom Collinger, chairman of integrated marketing communications, said the school has been developing relationships with Chinese universities and businesses. Twenty students are working at companies there this summer, he said, and about 50 percent of the program's students are international, many from Asian countries.

While in China last week, Caywood lectured for the fifth time at Sun Yat-sen University, speaking to the business school's graduate students about crisis and risk management. He also participated in a seminar on building environmental awareness.

Collinger said Caywood has been instrumental in developing Medill's programs in public and media relations, and crisis communications.

"He has really been very much the leader of that area of our curricula," Collinger said.

On Tuesday, Caywood said he expects to run about 200 meters, or about half the length of a standard high school track. Though not a far distance, he said he has worried about getting winded or falling.

"My students will read this and they'll say, 'Clark is OK, but he is a little overweight,' " he said. "At one point, they were talking about running on cobblestone streets, and I thought, 'Oh great, I'll be the guy who falls.' "