For Sponsors, China's 2008 Olympics Have Already Begun
China's 2008 Olympics are set to open exactly two years from today, but advertisers have gotten a running start.
TV ads show Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang racing with kangaroos to pitch Visa cards to the nation's yuppies, who like their Australian vacations.
Viewers can also see Mr. Liu with a can of Coke, drinking Yili milk, wearing Nikes, and hawking China Mobile cellphone services in separate advertisements.
Less than 24 hours after setting a world record in the 110-meter hurdles in 12.88 seconds last month, Liu Xiang arrived in Beijing wearing a shirt that Nike made especially for him.
That the 23-year-old Mr. Liu already has marketing deals with Visa International Ltd., Coca-Cola Co., Yili Group and Nike Inc., plus several others, underscores both the allure and the challenge of advertising at the Games in Beijing.
China's market is so immense that the 2008 Games are drawing a larger-than-usual field of corporate competitors. The Olympics traditionally are home to one official brand of credit card, one computer, one wristwatch. But the 2008 Games already boast three official beers: Tsingtao, Yanjing and Budweiser.
"One beer cannot cover all China," says Liu Jun, deputy director of marketing of the Beijing Organizing Committee, or Bocog. He says China's huge number of beer drinkers and the fragmented market justified the sudsy trifecta. Each of the beer companies established a different target audience, Mr. Liu says.
"Our point of view is this is the first time that China will conduct the Olympics," says a Tsingtao representative. "We believe it is a great thing that many Chinese brands and businesses are able to participate."
By now it's a truism that China's economy is red-hot and boasts 1.3 billion consumers. Johnson & Johnson, never an Olympic sponsor before, has climbed on board as a partner in the 2008 Games. Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of marketing heavyweight WPP Group PLC, reckons that by the time the Games come along, China could be the world's second-largest advertising market, moving into the slot behind the U.S. and ahead of Japan. Sir Martin has said it is "difficult to think of any sporting or cultural event in the world that could be bigger."
But in some ways, it may be too big. Thirty-six companies have by now snapped up marketing rights to the 2008 Games, and Bocog is still at it, choosing a final round of suppliers. Already, travelers on Beijing's ring roads see the 2008 logo splashed across billboards for dozens of different companies. To launch its new Sagitar model, Volkswagen China Group, which coordinates the activities of Volkswagen AG and its two joint ventures in China, made a splash over several months by giving away a new Sagitar to every Chinese gold medalist at the Torino games this past winter in Italy.
Ads featuring Chinese Olympic star hurdler Liu Xiang, who has landed multiple endorsements.
"If anybody starts now, it's a bit too late," says Sheng Li, Visa's head of marketing in China, who began his Beijing Olympics campaigns in 2004.
Getting started isn't cheap. Beijing-specific partnerships in some categories have cost advertisers as much as the fees for multiple games. In the hotly contested car category, Volkswagen China Group eventually put in the winning bid of about $100 million in cash and kind, according to people familiar with the matter.
The group's director of Olympic marketing, Anthony Laver, estimates that in the 12 months before the Games begin, official sponsors will spend as much as $2 billion on advertising just in China.
The investments can be risky. In China, sports marketers can find the rug pulled out from under them. For example, the nation's "diving prince," Tian Liang, who won a gold and a bronze medal in Athens in 2004, was kicked off the Chinese national team after appearing in too many commercials. Advertisers that had hired him for his Olympic luster, including direct-sales company Amway Corp., were left in the cold, although the ousted star still did the ads.
Then there is the case of the omnipresent hurdler/hawker, Liu Xiang. When Mr. Liu recently broke the world record in a competition in Lausanne, Switzerland, Nike -- which is not an official sponsor of the Games -- made him a T-shirt featuring his 12.88-second time to wear as he stepped off the plane back home. Nike says it was one of the fastest campaigns it ever produced. Yet one of Mr. Liu's other sponsors, dairy brand Yili, soon launched its own campaigns touting the 12.88 figure.
Chinese consumers find all this confusing. A new survey released today by Chinese marketing consultancy R3 and research firm TNS found that, without prompting, Chinese consumers associated Mr. Liu with no fewer than 19 brands.
"Few companies are succeeding right now in building unique associations," says R3's principal, Greg Paull. There is "tremendous potential for star associations to be overcooked," he says.
Visa is dealing with Mr. Liu's overexposure partly by featuring him in unconventional settings, like with the Australian marsupials. In addition, since 2004, Visa has sponsored the low-key national women's field hockey team. Field hockey isn't a particularly popular sport among Chinese women, who shun the sun. The company's marketing manager, Mr. Li, says ads featuring the team, which came in fourth in the Athens Olympics, underscore Visa's commitment to sporting, not just celebrities.
International brands seem to be off to a slower start than their local rivals, although marketing experts disagree on exactly when and how brands should use their Olympic association. Eight of the top 10 brands that Chinese consumers associate with the Olympics are local, according to the R3 and TNS survey, even though only one of 11 world-wide IOC Olympic partners is Chinese.
Many of the Games' international sponsors, such as McDonald's Corp., have relied on their long-term associations with the Games to build goodwill. But Chinese media have been closed to foreign content for so long that few consumers here get the connection. In the survey, McDonald's ranked 27th among brands that Chinese people associate with the Olympic rings. The fast food giant came in right after Chinese textile maker Heng Yuan Xiang.
Donald Chan, the China national managing director of Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett ad agency, is advising some of his clients, which include McDonald's, to start planning -- but wait on delivering ads until the second half of 2007. "Local brands are now trying to build a competitive presence against multinationals," he says. "But in terms of Olympic experiences, there is nothing going on right now. A lot of multinationals were using the World Cup to stay engaged instead."
Top, a Chinese dairy campaign; a Volkswagen ad that ran in the winter Olympics touts the Games' next stop in Beijing.
The multinationals and Chinese brands may be on different schedules because they are looking for very different results from their expensive marketing rights. "The message for the multinationals is that we are here in China, and we are going to be part of this transformation that is taking place," says Scott Kronick, the president of WPP Group's Ogilvy PR agency in Beijing. "The message for local companies is that we are a famous Chinese company that has the potential to be a global brand."
And, of course, China's poor record with intellectual property rights has left some brands nervous about "ambush marketing," or fu ji shi ying xian, in which brands either steal the Olympics logo or find ways to work Olympic images into their ads. "It's a very tough job for Bocog. We must protect rights at the same time, so many companies in China want to be associated with us," says Bocog's Mr. Liu.
The group has already shut down some unauthorized use of its logo and is considering launching educational campaigns on state TV to inform the public about the phenomenon. The campaigns may even feature hurdler Liu Xiang.
奥运营销门坎高
在中国的广告中，电视观众可以看到奥运跨栏冠军刘翔与袋鼠赛跑的场面，他是在向喜爱澳大利亚迷人风光的都市雅皮士们宣传威士(Visa)卡。
人们还可以看到刘翔畅饮可口可乐(Coke)、喝伊利(Yili)牛奶、穿耐克(Nike)鞋以及为中国移动(China Mobile)手机服务摇旗呐喊的广告。
而对于北京奥运会的广告商而言，想要在这些广告的狂轰滥炸中脱颖而出恐怕有一定难度。
以往中国的奥运健儿在捧得金牌后通常只是签下一两种产品的广告。而今年23岁的刘翔已经为威士国际组织(VISA International)、可口可乐公司(Coca-Cola Co.)、伊利集团(Yili Group)以及耐克(Nike Inc.)等多家公司代言，这足以显现出北京2008年奥运广告的吸引力及难度。
北京奥运会对商家颇具吸引力，这一点已经是不言而喻：中国经济发展如火如荼，另外还拥有13亿消费者。就连以往从未赞助过奥运的强生公司(Johnson & Johnson)也挤进了2008奥运合作伙伴的行列。营销巨头WPP Group PLC首席执行长马丁?索雷尔(Martin Sorrell)表示，随著北京奥运会日益临近，中国届时有可能成为全球第二大广告市场。他曾表示，“很难想像世界上还有什么体育或文化盛会能比得上奥运会的规模。”
不过从某种角度讲，奥运会的规模也许太大了。目前已有36家公司抢得了2008年奥运会的营销权，而北京奥运会组织委员会(Beijing Organizing Committee, 简称：奥组委)仍在为选择最后一批合作伙伴忙个不停。在北京环路上，标有奥运标识的数十家企业的广告牌竞相闪耀。电脑制造商联想集团(Lenovo Group Ltd.)正以高价出售印有奥运会5个可爱吉祥物的特别版USB驱动器。为了促销新车速腾(Sagitar)，大众汽车中国(Volkswagen China Group)与大众汽车(Volkswagen AG)及其在中国的两家合资公司一道，开展了为期数月的隆重推广活动，向都灵冬奥会的每位中国冠军赠送一辆速腾轿车。
“如果现在才起步，恐怕就太晚了，”威士驻中国的营销负责人李胜说。他早在2004年就开始筹备北京奥运的营销活动了。
奥运营销的代价也颇为不菲。在某些产品领域，企业为打上北京奥运的特别标识付出的代价足够令它成为不只一届奥运会的国际赞助商。据知情人士称，在竞争激烈的汽车领域，大众汽车中国最终以1亿美元中标。
大众汽车中国奥运市场部总监雷文安(Anthony Laver)估计，在奥运会开幕前的1年时间里，官方赞助商将在广告上投入20亿美元。
知情人士称，面对奥运会这场让中国初露头角的盛会，中国本地企业自然不会放过合作机会，它们的参与也令奥运营销成本居高不下。目前奥运会11家合作伙伴中有8家为中国企业，其中包括国家电网(State Grid Corp.)、中国石化(China Petrochemical Corp.)、中国石油(China National Petroleum Corp.)等公用事业及能源企业。
除了要争先恐后地在消费者脑海中刻下烙印外，广告商们还必须应对很多具有中国特色的问题，这里的体育营销尚处在萌芽阶段。
历届奥运会在同类产品中通常只选定一家官方赞助商，一个信用卡品牌、一个电脑品牌、一个手表品牌……而2008年奥运会却已拥有3家啤酒赞助商，分别为青岛啤酒(Tsingtao)、燕京啤酒(Yanjing)和百威啤酒(Budweiser)。这种做法尚属罕见，有待于获得国际奥委会(International Olympic Committee)的特别批准。
对此奥组委市场开发部副部长刘军表示，一种啤酒品牌不能代表整个中国。他说，每家啤酒企业都有不同的目标消费者。
青岛啤酒的一位代表称，中国将首次举办奥运会，很多中国品牌和企业终于可以参与进来，这是一件令人高兴的事情。
在中国，运动员代言产品要受到诸多方面的限制。比如跳水王子田亮就因广告活动过多而被国家跳水队除名。
跨栏选手和广告界的宠儿刘翔仍然无处不在。最近他在瑞典的比赛中打破世界纪录后，耐克（并非奥运会官方赞助商）立即为他赶制了印有12秒88的纪念T恤，他回国下飞机的那一刻已然穿上了这款T恤。耐克表示，这是公司有史以来行动最快的一次。而刘翔代言的其他品牌，包括伊利牛奶在内，也很快打出了12.88的字样。
中国消费者已经有些眼花缭乱。据中国营销咨询公司R3和研究公司TNS的调查，不经提醒，中国消费者就能把刘翔和至少19个品牌联系在一起。
“目前很少有公司能够和明星间建立起唯一的联系，”R3负责人格雷格?波尔(Greg Paull)说，“明星代言很可能被炒作过头。”
面对刘翔频频亮相的现实，威士采用了非传统手法应对，让刘翔与澳大利亚袋鼠演起了对手戏。此外，自2004年以来，威士还赞助了低调的国家女子曲棍球队。该公司营销经理李胜称，为曲棍球队设计的广告足以体现出我们对体育的热诚，我们不只是请名人。
在中国，运动员的日程通常由教练、而非职业经纪人安排。有鉴于此，大众汽车对所有请来的运动员实施了自己的一套大众传媒培训。“我们要让他们理解他们所扮演的角色，以及如何将这种角色融入到我们的奥运主题中，”大众的雷文安说。
奥组委还组织了赞助商俱乐部，定期召开会议，方便各公司交流问题，各抒己见，并尽量在营销活动上展开协作。
与本地企业相比，一些海外公司似乎已经慢了半拍，尽管营销专家们对何时以及如何运用奥运广告看法不一。R3和TNS的调查显示，在中国人耳熟能详的10个奥运品牌中有8个为本地品牌。不过国际奥委会的11个全球合作伙伴中只有一家为中国企业。
很多海外赞助商将扩大知名度的希望寄托在与奥运会的长期关系上，麦当劳(McDonald's Corp.)就是其中之一。不过长期以来中国媒体将海外内容拒之门外，致使中国消费者很少能够将这些海外品牌与奥运联系在一起。麦当劳在中国人熟悉的奥运品牌调查中排到了第27位，位列中国纺织品生产商恒源祥(Heng Yuan Xiang)之后。
Publicis Groupe旗下广告公司李奥贝纳(Leo Burnett)中国区经理Donald Chan建议包括麦当劳在内的客户开始著手准备奥运广告──但要等到2007年下半年发布。“本地企业正在设法抢占先机，但从以往的奥运经验看，没有必要现在入手。很多跨国企业转而利用世界杯作宣传。”
海外品牌与本地企业的不同日程或许与营销的不同宗旨有关。“对于跨国企业而言，他们想传递的信息是，'我们来了，我们将成为中国发展变化的一份子，'”WPP Group旗下奥美公关(Ogilvy)中国区总裁柯颖德(Scott Kronick)说，“而本地企业则试图表明，我们是中国企业的佼佼者，将来可能会发展为全球品牌。”
自2005年11月宣布成为奥运会赞助商以来，伊利集团一直是奥运广告商中最积极的一个，他们计划在2010年前跻身全球品牌行列。伊利的品牌经理说，体育方面的资源有限，抢得先机就能占领市场。在伊利获得奥运赞助商地位前，该公司还曾经试图签下几名运动员。
中国在知识产权保护方面的现状也让很多品牌对“伏击式营销”忧心忡忡。所谓“伏击式营销”是指盗用奥运标识或想方设法将自己与奥运形象联系在一起的行为。奥组委的刘军说，这是奥组委面临的一大难题。我们必须保护赞助商的权益，而与此同时又很多企业在想方设法与我们拉上关系。
奥组委已经查处了一些未经授权使用奥运标识的产品，并正在考虑通过国家电视台对公众展开这方面的宣传，甚至也可能邀请刘翔加入。
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Wendy Lee
