We chose to specialise in Olympic sponsorship consultancy because the scale of the undertaking ensures that the partnership has the full attention of the business – and sponsorship has the fullest application across the business.
We published Working the Olympics in 2012 – based on our experience with ten Olympic partners and interviews with a further 30 stakeholders – partners, OCOGS and representatives of the IOC and IPC – to map out the pathway to transformational business partnership practice. Our analysis showed a number of common approaches which we formulated into principles and which has informed our subsequent Olympic practice.
For most companies, however, Olympic and Paralympic partnership are out of the question. The sums involved, the geographies and the commitment required, all place partnership with the IOC and IPC in a category only to be dreamed of, without serious consideration.
But, looking back now, we realise that the learnings from Olympic partner consultancy are relevant to all strategic sponsorships – and that we’ve actually integrated these into our practice with non-Olympic partners, almost without realising.
So here they are, our five learnings from Olympic partnership consultancy.
Define the challenge
For Olympic and Paralympic Partners, looking at a partnership term of up to seven years, it’s critical to define a vision for the partnership as every part of the sponsor organisation will need to engage. But the key part of the vision is to identify the strategic challenges the partnership will be used to address. We’ve called out Coca-Cola as the past master in this : they have operationalised to perfection the process to onboard host markets and help them frame the partnership as a tool to lever change – reconnecting with a younger audience
Coca-Cola has perfected the art of applying its partnership to address business objectives
But for non-Olympic sponsors, it’s equally important. Clear headline objectives ensure activation and planning are aligned with business needs, they ensure senior stakeholders have a clear understanding of the Why? and they ensure that measurement is focused on what’s important.
The rationale for the sponsorship needs to create this understanding internally and externally and again, critically, just as with Olympic Partnership, the rationale needs to connect commercial objectives with how the sponsorship makes its contribution, its purpose.
Set a framework
The Games are so epic in scale that, almost from the moment of announcement, Olympic and Paralympic Partners are overwhelmed with sponsorship opportunities; and looked at in isolation, many of these can be very attractive. But even Olympic budgets only stretch so far and so really clear criteria are needed to ensure additional investment is additive and not just an opportunity cost. And arguably with smaller budgets, even more discipline is required.
A clear strategy helps to define what’s in and out. The clearer, the better. What does the strategy consist of: vision, objectives, values, core strengths, objectives by audience will provide a good enough framework. Phases can be useful to structure objectives and messaging. Audience take-outs likewise. A vision of the future state – where do we want to be in three years – can give helpful direction and a north star. Your framework will change, for sure, but the point is to establish these criteria at the outset to make your assessment of each opportunity easier (if not instant) and help you to search or create more pro-actively.
Play a part
The notion of product integration pretty broadly accepted now so it’s less of a learning and more of a reaffirmation. But arguably the greatest benefit that the Olympic Games offers is a structure which requires Partners to play a part in their delivery. It gives them a role, a story and a purpose.
Some sponsorship structures don’t naturally offer partners a role to play – but if everything else works and the partnership is too good to pass on – then get as creative as you can about the contribution your product can play.
Write your story
Cisco’s role in the delivery of the telecomms infrastructure served beautifully into its commercial ambitions
An Olympic Partnership can last as much as seven years – more than most brand campaigns. Over that time, across multiple touchpoints, with increasing frequency, Partners will be communicating their partnership activity.
The only way to ensure that communications remain coherent over time is to plot your narrative arc, from start to finish. The Olympics come to a natural and clear culmination, unlike many partnerships, so the ending will often need special consideration. What will we have achieved, how can we celebrate : how do we bring our partnership to a symbolic conclusion, in other words, to close the Gestalt.
Sponsorships that simply meander through their term with promotional activity can never really engage with audiences – because they are literally meaningless. A narrative arc wraps up that meaning in the partnership journey.
Turn employees into evangelists
Almost the greatest failing by most Olympic and Paralympic partners is to take maximum advantage of their employees. Sure, they run promotional activity, they produce merchandise, they may offer some tickets, Olympians and Paralympians may visit, all the usual gamut of internal activation – but their aspirations for employee engagement are low.
Olympic partnership is a once in a lifetime opportunity for every employee as much as every employer. It brings – potentially – personal and professional opportunity, status, excitement and purpose. Partners have an opportunity to convert their employees into loyalists, vocal brand evangelists. And it’s not just an opportunity, it’s almost a necessity. Because – literally – if you have a workforce of 60,000 going out, equipped to articulate your sponsorship, to explain to their family, friends and customers why the sponsorship is such a good and smart thing to do; and deliver your narrative with pride and enthusiasm – that can offset a vast media budget.
It’s not so easy with non Olympic sponsorships – unless you have embedded clear purpose and established your narrative arc. But it is possible, nearly aways possible, to engage employees with the sponsorship.
The key with non Olympic sponsorship is not a question of promotional activity etc because few properties can count on the broad foundation of support enjoyed by the Olympics and Paralympics. It lies in the underlying values of the sport, or the event, or the rightsholder – and communicating the relevance of those values. Even sports like F1, which are polarising for audiences – contain so much richness in the stories of the drivers and the teams that points of connection exist with every employee.
Olympic sponsorship sets high expectations and high standards for partners. But the disciplines set by these expectations are relevant to all sponsors, Olympic or otherwise.