Analysis by Michael Herndon in SRM 435 (section 2)
Starting from one hundred, the United States will be counting down the days until the start of the Sochi Olympics. This will be the third Olympics the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has hosted this event held in Times Square. The purpose of the event is to celebrate an official countdown to the start of the Olympics, as well as celebrate and showcase the Olympians themselves. Year-by-year the event has started to gain more publicity, creating a higher demand for sponsors.
This article explains what goes on at this event, the differences in the sponsors marketing over the years, and what it means to be a sponsor. The article starts out stating that the USOC expects more than 170,000 people to stop by at the event this year. This number would more than double the amount of people from the inaugural year for the Vancouver Games. The Event in Times Square marks the first event on their Road to Sochi Tour around the United States. Liberty Mutual will be the main sponsor out of twelve, where each sponsor will get their own activation area in Times Square. They will market their product while having activities to engage fans and anyone who walks by. Over the years this event has gone from hoping sponsors will want to market at the event, to sponsors seeing more value and looking to get a return on investment.
I believe marketing at this event is a great way to promote your brand because it contains almost all of the aspects of the sport promotional mix. Being in Times Square, there is tons of publicity. This publicity is free to the people walking through and visiting time square, and the event definitely stimulates demand for multiple products. They do this by having multiple incentives while using the technique of personal contact. In Times Square, there will be multiple Olympians/professional athletes along with engaging activities and performances from the Olympians. As for personal contact, they incorporate all three components: selling, monitoring, and servicing. They may not be charging any person to buy their product but the sponsors are trying to sell to customers that they have the best products. The organizations are monitoring how people act when they come into their activation area, as well as evaluating and re-evaluating their service to make sure it is a success, and will be in the future. When it comes to atmospherics, what more can you ask for. You are in the middle of Times Square with numerous Olympians, professional athletes, and other citizens who are all supporting the country they love, the United States.
Sponsorships are a big part of this article and I believe the sponsors did it right at this event. What I mean by this is that each sponsor had their own area to advertise their products. They were also able to bring a team out to the event to work with Olympians to get the right publicity. The hospitality of the event was great because they were using personal contact and helped create an atmosphere where fans are engaging in activities while enjoying their time in Times Square. As I’ve already talked about the incentives the event has, I think just being able to be in Times Square is enough of an incentive alone; same goes with atmospherics. Finally the community relations aspect of the event; clearly the event is being held in a great community, but this is only the opening stage for their four month tour. The USOC will be visiting twelve different cities around the United States to interact and connect with local communities all over the nation. There will be chances for donations and multiple giveaways, the Olympians/professional athletes will be performing and making appearances at activation areas, and there will be multiple on-site activities to get fans engaged, as I’ve stated before.
Overall, I believe this article connects to our class in multiple ways. I’ve already explained how this event pretty much incorporates all of the sports promotional mix that we have talked about in class. We have also talked about all the factors that have influenced growth in the sports industry. From the first year this event was held to now, there has been an increase in over 100,000 participants. I believe this is from the constant human interest in sports, along with sport business increasing in new diverse market segments. There has also been in increase in growth due to the new promotion and marketing techniques that they use to get people to come out to the event each year. As we’ve talked about in class, incentives are a great way to do this. Continuing forward, I believe this event will continue to grow and have an increase in the population of people that get involved. They incorporate sponsors who are using the sport promotional mix effectively, which creates an environment that people want to come back to. Not only has the event been run well, but this event is for a bigger event; the Olympics. I believe we take a lot of pride in our country when it comes to sports and this is another reason why the event in Times Square is a big success. Everyone is now waiting until the clock hits 100 days, for the countdown, to the Sochi Olympics.
---
Analysis by Michael Civiello in SRM 435 (section 2)
In this article the main focus was the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and its expansion of its sponsors for the upcoming pre-Olympic celebration held in Times Square. It is the third time this event has been held and the celebration itself is the start of the the “Road to Sochi Tour.” This tour is going across the country between November 2013 and February 2014. The event in Times Square is set to have 12 sponsors, all of which have their own “activation space.” Each sponsor is also assigned one of 12 sports interactive elements that fans can engage in. The sponsors include: Coca-Cola, AT&T, Budweiser, Chobani, Folgers, The Hartford, Hilton, Jif, Kellogg’s, United, and Smucker’s jams.
The event itself has grown not only in sponsors, but in attendance as well. The first year before the Vancouver games, 75,000 people came out to the inaugural event. Prior to the London games, 175,000 people showed up. This year’s event is expected to have 170,000 people. There has been more incentive to sign up for this event according to USOC’s chief marketer Lisa Baird. She thinks the incentive is the exposure for the different companies. That is a main reason Liberty Mutual signed up to be a lead sponsor. Their senior vice president of communications is quoted as saying: “…our presenting sponsorship of the Road to Sochi Tour provides Liberty Mutual Insurance the opportunity to expose the brand to millions of Olympic fans across the country…” The USOC itself has secured 12 billboards for branding its own logos and Pilobolus performance company who is doing a show as part of the event.
From marketing standpoint this event is a great way to promote a brand. Over 150,000 people are expected to be walking through Times Square, and will be able to have access to a company’s brand in some sort of way. Its up the company though, how they go about their “activation.” Lisa Baird, the USOC chief marketer, had a good point about the exposure, and each company will have a plan on how they want to engage each consumer. The USOC is helping with giving each brand an assigned event that fans can engage in. Its again up the sponsor on how effective they can sell it. A lot of activation could be giveaways, contests, enter to wins, etc.
The exposure a brand could get is unquestioned with how many people are expected to see it, but what could be questioned is why not more sports related companies and organizations trying to sponsor this event. It was shocking to see that not one was a known sport organization or company. The Olympics is the biggest sporting event in the world and it was very odd to see no related sponsors. The event is definitely growing, as attendance and sponsors have doubled since the last event before the London games in 2012. It was also mentioned that there were over 150 million media impressions. That is a whole lot of ways of getting a brand out. That statistic is a very high number and could definitely be an eye catcher for potential sponsors. With increasing attendance, it is not a stretch to say that there definitely will be an increase in sponsors to sign up. This article is relatable to the Sports Marketing course mainly for the fact that the focus of all this is geared toward the Olympics, aforementioned as the biggest sporting event in the world. It is something that potential sponsors would love to get a piece of, any type of way. One of those ways could be this 100 day-out celebration. It is definitely growing and could potentially expand even more. Any exposure for a brand is good and this is definitely a way to get a brand out to the public, and to a bigger audience not just in Times Square, but also across the country.
