If you work in the sponsorship industry for any length of time you will know that there are three hardy perennial media questions. These are:
- Francisco Goya has won the World Championship: what does that do to his sponsorship value?
- Francisco Goya has been accused of adultery on an unprecedented scale: what does this do to sponsorship value?
- Francisco Goya has announced his retirement: what does this do to his sponsorship value?
A fourth question, more of a quadrennial, runs along these lines: Is it hypocritical for the IOC to claim to appeal to higher values in the face of the actions of their sponsors, and (sometimes) the Organising Committees?
Now although this is generally just as much of an old chestnut as the others, I believe the IOC is en route for a perfect storm.
President Putin has had a rough media ride recently. ‘Sochi is to Putin what Berlin was to Hitler’ ‘Sochi’s $50 billion Vanity Games a reflection of Putin’s shoddy dictatorship’ ‘The dark side of Vladimir Putin’s Winter Olympic Games’.
And deservedly so. Russia has experienced an upsurge in homophobic vigilantism since the introduction of Putin’s anti LGBT laws, with public and social media outings, and violence on gays or ‘suspected gays’ becoming commonplace, according to the UK’s Guardian. In Moscow, a 2012 ban on gay pride marches was upheld ‘for the next 100 years’. Pussy Riot members were horsewhipped by Cossack security officials when they initiated a guerrilla performance beneath the Rings in Sochi.
Yet not all causes are equal. Charity fundraisers know there’s a clear pecking order so far as causes is concerned. Young children are at the top, with – in the UK, at least – animals a close second. Both are capable of sustaining collective psychological projection, relieving us from having to take a more balanced, cognitive approach. Medical research is very popular, because of its universal relevance. As a rule of thumb, domestic causes poll better than the equivalent abroad. So the toughest job in the fundraising world used to be for NACRO – defending prisoners abroad. There are no LGBT charities in Forbes Top 200 Charities.
Human rights from time to time becomes a cause célèbre – Gandhi, Mandela, Bali, Palestine Pussy Riot – but never universally popular in the way of UNICEF, for example. So Beijing’s slum clearances were widely condemned, but apart from global tut-tutting, there was little evidence of public engagement. Although morally repugnant, Putin’s scapegoating of the LGBT minority is unlikely to do more than reduce tourism. And the enactment of Putin’s laws in 20XX exonerate the IOC from complicity.
But Rio 2016 is a different story altogether.
Rio contains major tracts of the ‘lungs of the world’. There is general scientific recognition that, in the words of HRH Prince Charles, ‘tropical forests play an absolutely critical role in ensuring the stability of the global climate; they are vital in providing global food, water and energy security’, the Amazon rainforest, above all.
Environmental charities, understandably, have been the biggest winners in terms of charity popularity stakes over the last two decades. In the face of apparently intractable discussion about the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Amazon deforestation offers a simple, easy to understand, emotive argument (as well as the luxury of being able to make global warming someone else’s problem). It is the burning platform of all burning platforms. And after years of decline deforestation went up not down, in 2013 – by 28%.
Reducing environmental impact from planning to implementation, and post event activities has been a Rio 2016 Organising Committee priority from the outset. But there’s a question of the sponsors…
Greenpeace alleged in 2006 that soybeans illegally grown on cleared rainforest lands have been traced to companies that produce chickens for McDonald’s, with cattle ranchers selling off pasture land to soybean farmers and then clearing new areas, selling the wood to loggers. McDonald’s responding promptly by agreeing to stop selling chicken fed on soya grown in newly deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest and putting pressure on the big five soy traders to come to the negotiating table with regards to deforestation.
Coca-Cola Company stands accused of buying sugar from a company that has grabbed the ancestral land of the Guarani tribes of Jata Yvary in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state. 4 million hectares of land have been acquired for sugar production since 2000. The acquisitions of land have been linked to human rights violations, loss of livelihoods and hunger for small-scale food producers and their families.
Nissan is sourcing pig iron, subsequently used for steel production in the US, that has been produced in blast furnaces fuelled by rainforest. Greenpeace has linked the two largest Brazilian pig iron companies, Viena and Sidepar, to a steel-mill in the US that supplies Nissan, alongside other major manufacturers such as Ford, GM, BMW and Mercedes.
We are still two years out. Sepp might once again do his wonderful job of drawing the sting of the media. But if I were the IOC, or any TOP sponsors in particular, I would be getting my house in order right now. Not just making sure my supply chain management is impeccable, but engaging with initiatives to demonstrate proactive concern for the Amazon, not just reactive.
The Nissan Leaf is amazing, breakthrough technology, but there’s also a lot of mileage in the line that Nissan’s Leaf was built at the cost of the Amazon’s canopy.
I was one of those who applauded the IOC’s decision to award the Games to Rio, but if this can be shown to have accelerated deforestation, the IOC’s reputation will, I believe, suffer a genuine bodyblow.
The IOC is well protected from the impact of actions by its sponsors, by the nature of the relationship and the public affairs teams of the brands in question.
Human rights abuses are deplorable – for many people; but they’re also, in a small pluralistic world, relative – for many more. The Amazon though, and its inhabitants, is a symbol of our lost innocence, our expulsion from the Garden – it’s the most precious piece of environmental and emotional real estate in the world, the one brand that knocks the Rings into a hat. (https://tokyosmyrna.com/)
Unless the IOC convenes all its TOPs to act fast, the decision to award the Games to Rio risk undermining all of the brand building of recent years, and, in the demonstrable complicity of IOC, sponsors and OCOG, land that question number four, at long last.