INSIGHTS

I’m sure someone, somewhere has done a review of the creative work by brands who battled to go higher, faster, stronger during the recent 2010 Winter Games hosted by Vancouver. If so, I have not seen it, so here are my Olympic Marketing Medals and Misses.

Let’s start with the Misses, those creative performances that would be the equivalent of a 17th finish. First up? General Motors. Here was a perfect opportunity for a tainted brand to apply fresh gold shimmer in front of record TV audiences. Talking cars? Sorry, not good enough. What was the shoot for these ads like? OK, rolling…OK cut. Great take, Sierra grill. How about Petro-Canada and their glasses? Asking viewers to equate a spinning glass with figure skating was too much of a stretch. Coca Cola was another disappointment. The “Our Game” anthem was nicely executed, but very one dimensional as hockey was the sole focus. Molson’s Hockey House was a much bigger idea. Finally, Galen Weston Jr. remains a charming pitchman, but the message of winning with Loblaws Blue Choice products was ultimately undercut by the poor performance of the Alpine Team.

Now, on to the Medals. The Bronze Medal goes to…Hudson’s Bay Company. Although I did not really like the attire at first glance, it’s sheer ubiquitousness wore me down. And I was not alone. According to the Globe and Mail, HBC’s realized a 43 percent increase in awareness of Olympic sponsorship, far above that of other sponsors. The mittens, I thought, were a nice stroke. An inexpensive way to show your true colours.

The Silver Medal goes to…RBC. The Royal Bank got the most bang for their buck, having sponsored the torch relay. The RBC little man icon was cute, but not too cutesy. I like the way the creative allowed him to interact with all the events. The shot of him sitting atop the spinning curling rock was a hoot.

Finally…the 2010 Olympic Marketing Gold Medal goes to…VISA. Every spot told a compelling story (the maple syrup story was very nice). Every spot was consistency blue-tinged and beautifully executed. Here’s the kicker. Moments before the big Canada-US hockey final, a VISA spot comes on with the simple message “For a brief moment, a nation held its collective breath”, accompanied by a slow motion shot of a puck floating down between two sticks at a face-off circle. Wow. Powerful. Simple. And most important timely. There’s no doubt in my mind that VISA produced this spot for EXACTLY this moment. You gotta appreciate the foresight and courage to have that ready. Brilliant.

So the mighty cauldron is extinguished. As we look back on 17 days of intense competition, a question remains – Are the Olympics worth the sponsorship dollars? For my part, I’m not sure I BELIEVE.