赞助商盯上北京奥运会

Prospecting for Chinese Gold

The Athens Olympics had begun two days earlier, but at an exclusive restaurant for sponsors next to the main stadium complex, one table of diners focused on an event 4,700 miles and four years away: the 2008 Beijing Games.

In the air-conditioned comfort of the Olympic Club, executives from General Electric Co. huddled with Beijing's deputy mayor, Liu Jingmin. Mr. Liu oversees the China capital's Olympics-related building projects, which are expected to total $34 billion. For GE, which just signed an eight-year Olympic sponsorship, those plans represent an opportunity to sell everything from power generators to water purifiers.

The small talk -- "We complimented him on the success of China's Olympic team," says Mark Lewis, executive director of GE's Olympic sponsorship program -- belied big ambitions. Since these Games began, Mr. Lewis has met with more than 100 Chinese executives and government officials in Athens, giving what he calls his "Disneyland tour" of Olympic infrastructure. Instead of gymnasts and track stars, he's been showing off lighting installations and security systems -- the kind of gear GE hopes to sell to Beijing. "We've walked them around and showed them what it all means," he says.

ATHENS 2004


? Complete coverage of the Summer Olympics 2004.

? Built to Last?: What happens to stadiums after the Olympics end?

? Securing the Games: Explore the rising costs of Olympic security.

? Faster, Higher, Stronger: See how Olympic drug testing works, the penalties for violations and some famous doping cases.

? View a photo gallery of the day's highlights.

QUESTION OF THE DAY


How much Olympics coverage have you watched?



GE isn't the only company courting the Chinese here. Other major sponsors of the International Olympic Committee, including Visa, McDonald's and Coca-Cola, see the vast, growing China market as the mother lode of sports sponsorship. Greece's population is a bit less than 11 million; China's is over 1.2 billion.

"The Olympics will help drive the relevance of our restaurants," says Jackie Woodward, McDonald's vice president of global brand business. And the number, too: from about 600 now, McDonald's aims to have 1,000 restaurants in China by 2008.

The opportunity is generating marketing records. The IOC has raked in $866 million from its 11 global sponsors for the quadrennium that includes Beijing, up 31% from the 2001-2004 cycle. The Beijing Organizing Committee is doing even better, selling national sponsorships to international and Chinese companies for up to $100 million apiece.

GE booked $2.6 billion in revenue in China in 2003; it wants to increase that to $5 billion by 2005. So it's taking every opportunity to promote its link to the Beijing Games. In May, Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt attended a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People to commemorate the company's role as an IOC sponsor, even though the formal deal had been signed a year earlier.

Playing the Credit Card

Visa executives took Bank of China officials on a stroll through downtown Athens. They weren't sightseeing or shopping; the goal was to show the bankers how many stores accept credit cards. "We went to Carrefour, to the Olympic superstore, to ATMs," says Li Sheng, a Visa International vice president.

Only about 10% of merchants in Beijing accept credit cards. Visa wants to boost that to more than 75% before the Olympic torch is relit. Persuading Chinese banks to get stores and restaurants wired for credit is crucial. "There is a long way to go for us," says Mr. Li.

That's also true for Chinese companies that are hoping Olympic sponsorship will provide a shortcut to greater brand awareness both at home and abroad. "It's not easy, especially for a Chinese company, to build a world-wide brand," says Alice Li, a spokeswoman for Lenovo Group, China's largest computer maker and the first Chinese company to sign on as a world-wide IOC sponsor. "The five-ring logo definitely leverages our brand image world-wide."

She says Lenovo executives have studied the success of South Korea's Samsung, which used its Olympics sponsorship to help it become a major player in global telecommunications and mobile-phone markets. Lenovo dispatched a flotilla of marketers and brand consultants to soak up all they can in Athens.

Yuan Bin, the Beijing Organizing Committee's deputy director of marketing, has spent much of her time here giving Chinese companies their first exposure to international marketing.

"Some of these companies have sponsored a table-tennis tournament before, but this is quite different," she says. She took them on stadium tours, explained IOC rules -- such as a "clean venue" provision barring corporate logos in certain places -- and took them through corporate hospitality tents. "We have to learn everything," she says.

One lesson: Avoid the empty seats in vast Olympic complexes that have marred the image of the Athens Games. The world's television broadcasters have badgered the IOC to round up schoolchildren or soldiers to fill seats and provide a livelier viewing background. The IOC now is prodding international sports federations to tone down their demands for ever-fancier stadiums for their sports.

High ticket prices also are a concern. Sead Dizdarevic, whose U.S.-based Jet Set Sports controls much of the market for Olympic ticket and hotel packages, says prices for premier events in Athens were much too high, resulting in huge numbers going unsold. Organizers wouldn't allow discounting. And the Greek government, which is struggling to recoup the $8.5 billion it spent on the Games, didn't buy surplus tickets for government workers, as Australia did in Sydney in 2000. Mr. Dizdarevic says high hotel prices also kept visitors away. "We argue all the time, 'Too high, too high.' Some day they'll believe me."
China's Hualian Supermarket H1 net profit down 4.84 pct yr-on-yr



BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - Hualian Supermarket Co Ltd (SHA 600825) said its first half net profit fell 4.84 pct year-on-year to 28.62 mln from 30.08 mln yuan as intense competition squeezed gross margins.

The Shanghai-listed company said total revenue rose 0.36 pct on a yearly basis to 1.98 bln yuan.

Gross margins for its service business plunged 79.22 pct year-on-year, while gross margins for its retail operations fell 0.38 pct from a year earlier.

During the six-month period, the company raised 600.38 mln yuan through an issue of an additional 64.58 mln A-shares to fund the construction of 20 new outlets in 13 major cities.

The share issue raised the total number of shares on issue to 103.15 mln.

The company did not provide an earnings forecast for the second half.

Earning per share fell to 0.131 yuan from 0.195 yuan a year earlier.
赞助商盯上北京奥运会

在雅典奥运会刚刚进行了两天时，雅典主会馆附近一个专门接待奥运赞助商的餐馆里，一群进餐者就已将目光投向了万里之遥的北京，四年后在那里将召开2008年北京奥运会。

在奥运俱乐部里，通用电气(General Electric Co.)的管理人士与北京市副市长刘敬民进行了私下会谈；刘敬民同时也主管著预计总价值340亿美元的北京奥运相关建设项目。对于刚刚签署了8年奥运会赞助协议（从明年起生效）的通用电气，这些建设计划无疑意味著从发电到水净化设备等诸多无可比拟的销售机会。

此次会谈显示了通用电气的志在必得，通用电气奥运赞助计划的执行董事马克?刘易斯(Mark Lewis)表示。自从雅典奥运会开始后，刘易斯在雅典陪同100多位中国官员和高管人士进行了他所谓的奥运会基础设施“一游”。这可不是带他们去看冉冉升起的体操或径赛明星，而是展示各种灯光、安全系统等设备，通用电气希望将这些设备也卖到北京去。刘易斯每天大约要花5个小时的时间来陪伴这些潜在的奥运会客户。

当然，在雅典奥运会的篇章逐渐翻过去后，并非只有通用电气觊觎中国这个市场。国际奥委会(International Olympic Committee)的其他主要赞助人，如威士国际组织(VISA International)、麦当劳(McDonald's Corp., MCD)和可口可乐公司(Coca-Cola Co., KO)等，也将庞大的中国市场视为体育赞助的“金矿”。他们希望凭藉自己与奥林匹克的深厚关系，能在中国积极组办2008年奥运会带来的商机竞争中获得大幅优势。

“普通消费者将能通过我们接触到奥林匹克，”麦当劳全球品牌副总裁杰克?伍德沃德(Jackie Woodward)表示，“奥林匹克将有助于提升我们连锁店的地位。”麦当劳计划到2008年将中国连锁店的数目从现在的约600家左右增至1,000家。

进入这个全球增长最快的市场的前景，所带来的吸引力正在创造新的营销纪录。针对包括北京奥运会在内的4年期，国际奥委会已从11个全球赞助商处获得了8.66亿美元，较目前的4年期高31%。但北京奥组委(The Beijing Organizing Committee)做的更好，其国内赞助商地位以每家1亿美元的价格卖给了国内外企业，甚至超过了全球赞助商支付给国际奥委会的价格。

国际奥委会营销委员会主席吉哈德?海伯格(Gerhard Heiberg)称，北京“是迄今为止赞助商最感兴趣的地方之一，所有人都将中国视为最大的机会。”比如，通用电气2003年在中国录得26亿美元收入，希望到2005年收入能增至50亿美元。为此，该公司正在利用每个可能的机会强调其未来对北京奥运会的赞助商地位。今年5月，通用电气首席执行长杰弗瑞?伊梅尔特(Jeffrey Immelt)在中国人民大会堂出席了一个签字仪式，庆祝该公司成为国际奥委会的北京奥运会赞助商，虽然正式协议已于一年前签署完成。

威士国际组织的管理人士带著来自中国银行(Bank of China)的官员在雅典市中心巡游。他们并不是在观光，也不是购物；目的只是为了给中国银行的官员们展示有多少商店接受信用卡。“我们去看了家乐福(Carrefour)，看了奥林匹克超级商店，看了自动取款机，”威士国际组织副总裁李胜表示。

中国目前有300万威士卡可在国外使用。威士国际组织希望到2008年这个数字将升至5,000万。但它也面临挑战。在北京，目前只有10%左右的商家接受电子货币。威士国际组织希望到2008年奥运会时这个比例能升至75%以上。说服中国国内银行让当地商店和餐馆安装信用卡终端是其中的关键。

这对中国公司也是如此，他们正在纷纷跳上奥运会赞助这驾马车，视其为提升品牌知名度的一条捷径。“打造全球品牌可不容易，特别是对一家中国公司来说，”中国最大的电脑制造商联想集团(Lenovo Group)的发言人李岚(Alice Li)表示。该公司最近成为了国际奥委会第一家中国全球赞助商。“奥运五环标志显然有助于提升我们的全球品牌形象。”

李岚表示，联想管理层已对韩国三星电子(Samsung Electronics Co.)的成功进行了研究，该公司借助奥运赞助商地位成为了全球电信和手机市场的主要竞争者。因此，联想已派遣了专门的营销人员和品牌顾问前往雅典学习。

每次奥运会都为下一次提供了学习的机会。中国迅速增长的市场所具有的规模更是使雅典成为了一个硕大的教室。北京奥组委市场开发部副部长袁斌在雅典把大量的时间用在了帮助中国企业的首次国际亮相。

袁斌说：“以前虽然也有些中国公司会赞助一场乒乓球赛，但现在有很大的不同。”

一些观察人士坚持称，应考虑到票价因素。总部位于美国的Jet Set Sports承接了大部分的奥运会票务和酒店预定业务，该公司的迪兹代尔维克(Sead Dizdarevic)称，雅典热门赛事（如体操、田径、游泳和跳水等）的票价明显定价太高，有许多票都没有售出。他说，难以收回70亿欧元（合84.6亿美元）奥运会投资的希腊政府没有购买足够的富余票发放给政府雇员，就像澳大利亚政府于2000年悉尼奥运会时所做的那样。

迪兹代尔维克表示，高昂的酒店价格也让许多人望而却步，特别是那些原打算举家前往的。“我们一直在说，定价太高了，太高了，”他说，“总有一天他们会相信我的话。”

北京的组织者们听到了迪兹代尔维克的声音。“我与国际奥委会及其他方面讨论了为什么会发生这样的情况，以及如何才能避免这种情况的出现，”北京奥组委的袁斌称。她将把这个信息带回北京：不管是赞助、酒店还是赛事票价，她说，“你都必须定价合理”。

中国广告大打奥运爱国牌
China's Advertisers See Olympic Gold

With China's Olympians winning a record 32 gold medals in the Athens Games and the 2008 Beijing Games looming large on the horizon, Chinese fans are greeting each other with the phrase "jia you" -- or, "go for it."

China's advertisers are taking their advice. "Go for it, Chinese team!" enthuses a voice-over on ads for Kunlun, a brand of lubricant from PetroChina Co., played alongside medals tallies. The ads were made by domestic agency White Horse.

Selling everything from milkshakes to shoes, China's marketers are kick-starting what is likely to turn into an advertising bonanza leading up to the Games' arrival in Beijing. Even though many of the Athens Games were shown after midnight in China, viewers turned to their televisions in droves, watching 40% more television than usual on weekends in some cities. Broadcast 24 hours a day, the Games each night attracted an average of about 35% of the country's urban prime-time television audience.

As viewing patterns are bearing out, the ads highlight a truism of marketing to the Chinese: Ethnic nationalism scores. "People are not really watching the Olympics just because it is sports. They're watching because it is China's team -- China's attempts at a gold medal," says Vincent Cheung, sport-research business-development director at ratings firm CSM, which has collated early ratings data for 24 cities.

Most of the ads refer to 2008, a nod to the first Olympics outside the U.S. where advertisers care as much about reaching the host market as they do an international one. It's largely an issue of numbers, as credit-card companies and shampoo makers alike scramble to reach into China's fast-growing 1.3 billion-person consumer market. "It's difficult to think of any sporting or cultural event in the world that could be bigger," says WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell of the 2008 Games. By then, he thinks China will be the world's second-largest advertising market.

Top-selling domestic sportswear brand Li Ning began airing a TV ad with the start of the Games that touts the brand's Chinese roots. "We all share the same dream -- because we are all 'Made in China,' " says a voice-over on the ad, which features performances by five members of the country's national team. "Patriotism is a point of difference. It sets a forever barrier to Nike and Adidas," says Kelvin Cheng, Beijing managing director of Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett, which made the spot for Beijing Li-Ning Sports Goods Co.

But in fact, some foreign brands, too, are using Olympics-inspired patriotism as a launching pad.

Starting tomorrow, international Olympics sponsor McDonald's Corp. will launch a spot also made by Leo Burnett that features Chinese gymnasts eating the chain's "Gold Medal selection," a fruit and milkshake medley that "keeps our dreams of getting gold medals alive," according to a voice-over.

Similarly, Omnicom Group ad agency BBDO made a spot for PepsiCo Inc. that shows Olympics athletes Li Xiao Peng, Yao Ming, and Xu Haifeng -- who won China's first gold medal in shooting in 1984 -- pushing their athletic limits in challenges lined with Pepsi cans. The ad, says BBDO's Pepsi account director Chris Shen, allows the soft drink to connect "an event that Chinese consumers are excited about, identify with and patriotic for" with Pepsi's new slogan "dare for more."

But tapping China's strong nationalistic streak carries some risk, as was highlighted this month in Beijing when Chinese fans made threats against the Japanese following Japan's defeat of China in soccer's Asian Cup final. Associations with violence like that could dent the reputation of advertisers already skittish about any association with potential doping and terrorism.

"Nationalism is a very fine line that could backfire," says Aaron Lau, Asia chairman of Omnicom's DDB ad agency. He says nationalism won't necessarily work for foreign brands that "everybody knows are not Chinese."

American sportswear maker Nike Inc. decided to take a middle-of-the-road approach in a series of TV and print ads featuring Chinese 110-meter hurdler Liu Xiang. The ad refers to the accomplishments of Asian -- not Chinese -- athletes in voice-overs explaining the stereotypes that supposedly limit Asian athletes. "The intensity of Asian muscles is not strong enough," says one, followed by "Stereotypes are there to be broken" at the end.

"There were some sensitivities, so we wanted it to be part of a generic platform," says Yeat Mung Koo, who manages Nike's China advertising at WPP's J. Walter Thompson. "We wanted to be bigger than just China."

Some brands, worried the coming four years will bring a flood of nationalistic messages, are avoiding the approach entirely. China Mobile Communications Corp., a national sponsor of the 2008 Games, launched ads focusing on athletes' individual accomplishments, not the progress of the Chinese people. "If you want to take on an opponent, first you have to take on yourself," says a print ad featuring a member of China's table-tennis team, made by WPP's Ogilvy & Mather.

"It goes back to the basic principles of marketing -- brands need to find their own space," says Edward Bell, group planning director for Ogilvy in Beijing. "So nationalism is not going to be a viable strategy for every brand."
中国广告大打奥运爱国牌


随著中国奥运健儿在雅典获得创纪录的32块金牌，2008年的北京奥运会看来更加值得期待，中国体育迷们正在高呼“加油”。

中国的广告商们显然也从中嗅出了什么。电视上此届奥运奖牌榜的一侧就播放著昆仑润滑油的广告，画外音激动高呼“加油，中国队！”昆仑润滑油是中国石油天然气股份有限公司(PetroChina Co. Ltd., PTR或0857.HK, 简称：中国石油)的产品。这则广告是由中国国内的白马户外媒体(White Horse)制作的。

从推销奶昔到运动鞋等等不一而足，中国的广告公司正在启动一场北京奥运会前的广告盛会。虽然雅典奥运会的许多赛事都在中国时间午夜举行，但仍有大量的人们准时打开电视机进行收看，一些城市收看电视的时间比平日的周末多出了40%。一天24小时播出的奥运节目每晚黄金时段平均吸引了约35%的城市观众。

正如收视情况所显示的那样，民族主义也成了向中国人进行广告宣传时的一个基本诉求点。“人们观看奥运会并不只是因为它是体育运动，而是因为这是中国队挑战金牌，”央视－索福瑞媒介研究有限公司(CSM)的体育赞助调研总监张荣辉(Vincent Cheung)表示。该公司收集了24个城市的早期收视率数据。

大多数广告提到了2008年，这是广告商首次对美国以外地区的奥运会如此重视。这很大程度上是规模带来的吸引力，信用卡公司和洗发水生产商均已纷纷抢占中国迅速增长的13亿人口的消费市场。WPP Group的首席执行长马丁?索瑞尔(Sir Martin Sorrell)表示，世界上没有什么体育或文化活动能超出2008年的奥运会。他预计届时中国将成为世界第二大广告市场。

中国国内运动服饰第一品牌李宁(Li Ning)在雅典奥运会一开始就不断播放一则突出李宁是民族品牌的电视广告：“我们都有一个梦──因为我们都生于中国”，画面中融合了5位中国国家队队员的身影。”Publicis Groupe旗下李奥贝纳(Leo Burnett)北京分公司的董事总经理郑家强(Kelvin Cheng)表示，爱国主义是一个区分点，这对于耐克(Nike)和阿迪达斯(Adidas)是一道永远的障碍。李奥贝纳为北京李宁体育用品公司(Beijing Li-Ning Sports Goods Co.)制作了上述广告。

但事实上，一些外国品牌也在将奥运会激发的爱国情绪作为立足点。

雅典奥运会的全球赞助商麦当劳(McDonald's Corp.)不日即将推出也是由李奥贝纳制作的一则广告，画面上中国体操队员正在吃麦当劳的“金牌系列”套餐，画外音称，这种水果和奶昔的套餐“让我们的金牌梦想保持不息”。

类似的，Omnicom Group旗下的BBDO为百事公司(PepsiCo Inc.)制作了一则广告，画面上中国的奥运选手李小鹏、姚明和1984年赢得中国首块金牌的射击选手许海峰挑战以百事可乐罐排成的运动极限。BBDO的百事客户总监Chris Shen称，这个广告将百事的新广告词“突破渴望”(dare for more)与令中国消费者深感激动的赛事联系了起来，并让中国消费者从中获得了民族主义的认同感。

但利用中国人旺盛的民族主义情绪也存在一定风险，本月亚洲杯足球赛决赛中中国队负于日本后，在北京发生的中国球迷对日本球员的威胁行为就是很突出的一例。与此类暴力联系在一起可能会损害广告商的名声，让本已不愿与不良因素或恐怖主义有关联的广告商望而却步。

“民族主义是非常微妙的一个因素，弄不好就会弄巧成拙，”Omnicom旗下恒美广告(DDB)的亚洲董事长Aaron Lau表示。他表示，以民族主义为诉求点的广告对于众人皆知非本土所有的外国品牌不一定奏效。

美国体育用品制造商耐克公司(Nike Inc.)决定在由中国110米跨栏运动员刘翔出演的一系列电视和印刷广告中采取中庸路线。该广告在列出一组亚洲运动员可能先天不足的定律设问后，强调这是亚洲人的突破（而不是中国人）。在“亚洲人的肌肉不够强劲”的定律设问后，以“定律是用来打破的”结束了整个广告。

“这有些敏感，因为我们想让它成为一个更普遍平台的一部分，”WPP旗下智威汤逊(J. Walter Thompson)主管耐克中国广告的古月敏(Yeat Mung Koo)表示，“我们希望它不仅仅限于中国。”

有些品牌担心未来四年民族主义将充斥各个广告，就乾脆避其道而不用。2008年奥运会的国内赞助商中国移动通信公司(China Mobile Telecommunication Corp.)推出了一系列的广告，重点关注运动员的个人成就，而不是中华民族的进步或骄傲。中国某乒乓球名将在WPP旗下奥美(Ogilvy & Mather)制作的一份印刷广告中称，“要战胜对手，首先就要战胜自己”。

“这回到了营销的基本准则──品牌需要找到自己的空间，”奥美驻北京的集团企划总监钟桥轩(Edward Bell)表示，民族主义策略并非每个品牌都适用。