You could hardly contain your excitement when your agency was asked to bid on a major multi-media campaign for the Canadian Olympic Committee. Time is ticking to the submission deadline, and you and your creative team must develop a campaign that will link Canadian Olympic legends with medal hopefuls for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
When you think of the Olympic Games, what images, faces and feelings spring to mind? Probably the same ones held by youth across the country and around the world. While athletes still win the allegiance of their hometowns, thanks to new and emerging media, Olympic stories now belong to everyone.
More than 250 million photos are uploaded by the world’s 800 million Facebook users every day. We experience daily life differently now than even four years ago. We participate in large events like the Olympic Games using technology, making this engagement more interactive.
“Planning for the use of social media before it was available led to the success of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games,” says Burke Taylor, Executive Producer for Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. This allowed for the Vancouver 2010 organizers to promote and cover the Games in new ways.
“Ever since 2010, Olympic Games coverage has evolved,” says Nathalie Cook, Marketing Vice President for Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium. “It used to be a 30 or 60 second spot, and that was the story.” For London 2012, the Consortium started with social media. “In July (2011), we went hard on social marketing; Facebook, Twitter and our News Reader,” says Cook.” In the spring of 2012, we’ll have news, sports and surveys up on video.”
Cook says: “We knew that we could engage Canadians if they got to know the athletes.” More than 200 athletes have been sharing their stories on the Consortium’s Facebook site. This includes hurdles hopeful Priscilla Lopes-Schliep. She has posted photos of her new baby girl. New media means more people can follow the Games.
For London 2012, there will be an effort to engage immigrant Canadians. The Consortium will be telling the stories of athletes like Carol Huynh. She was Canada’s first gold medalist in Wrestling (Beijing 2008). Her family settled in the small town of New Hazelton, B.C. after leaving Vietnam as refugees.
There are lots of Canadians coming from countries where different sports are very popular and they could become viewers. So the Consortium is now researching “where new Canadians are coming from and what sports they follow,” says Cook. They are very interested in how new Canadians watch the Games. The media reaches out to die-hard sports fans and big event watchers. But there is also a “whole other group of people from countries who do well in Olympic sports,” says Cook. They want to know what will motivate new Canadians to get more involved in the Games.
In the past, there were fewer considerations to be made. A media campaign was simply how a message was rolled out to a passive public audience. Now the audience is active. Today’s media users are participants. While television is known as a “lean back” medium, social technology is “lean forward.” Fans want information that is personal, customized and live.
“In Vancouver, the tablets hadn’t launched yet, when we started our campaign. Even then, the unveiling of the Team Canada uniform almost crashed our website,” remembers Cook. “Now they’re ubiquitous. Now our web content has to be smart phone and tablet friendly. It’s very much a multi-screen approach.”
As a result, traditional print media, such as newspapers and magazines play a much smaller role. “Print does not give us the same reach as the other media,” explains Cook.
Television plays a follow-up role to the more immediate stories that are covered on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Some of this is driven by cost. YouTube is cheap, but a TV campaign can be very expensive. This shift is also changing how people are now viewing the Olympic Games.
The media also helps connect people through large-scale marketing efforts like the Red Mittens Campaign. The Red Mittens were part of the Olympic Torch Relay uniform for Vancouver 2010. “Three and a half million pairs of red and white mittens sold for $10 each during the Games,” says Dennis Kim, the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Executive Director for Brand Marketing. The Consortium and Hudson’s Bay Company helped make people aware of the mittens. ”People still hang onto their mittens because it reminds them of the Games.”
The mittens helped Canadians show their support for the Team. New mittens are being released to support the Canadian Olympic Team competing in London. Trampoline gymnast Karen Cockburn from Toronto, springboard diver Jennifer Abel from Quebec and World Champion canoer Mark Oldershaw from Burlington, Ontario are modeling the mittens.
Creating a successful campaign requires using multi-media to deliver a catchy message. Once message is developed, it is a question of how best to get the message out. How can Canadians be involved in the message? How can we keep the message going? In drafting the campaign, “story boards” are created to plan how the message can be delivered in many different but related ways. This can include using Twitter to communicate in-the-moment tweets, or posting stats on a webpage. It means uploading photos to Facebook, sending an invite, or creating a new app for someone’s smart phone or tablet. The possibilities are endless.
The Consortium isn’t alone in using multi-media to attract Canada’s Olympic fans. The Canadian Olympic Committee is making their website, www.olympic.ca, Canada’s first stop for athlete information. The site will be the homepage for the Canadian Olympic Team, and will tell the athletes’ stories. It will have new videos, one-on-one interviews, feature articles, the history of the Canadian Olympic Team, and up-to-the minute results and stats. The site will link fans to the athletes’ websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter. The Canadian Olympic Team athletes are Canada’s best ambassadors for excellence, fair play and perseverance and the website will give Canadian Olympic fans a personal look at their Olympic heroes.
The challenge, says Cook, is that “people’s expectations of media providers have skyrocketed. Audiences are fractured. People are just going to where their interests are.” For broadcasters and journalists, it requires patience and passion, weekend work and night shifts. “It does demand some sacrifices,” says Cook.
The Olympic brand is one of the most recognized in the world. But it is the creative geniuses that help get the fans excited in following the Olympic Games. The Olympic Rings are easily recognized, but Olympic media coverage makes global fans.
When you think of the Olympic Games, what images, faces and feelings spring to mind? Probably the same ones held by youth across the country and around the world. While athletes still win the allegiance of their hometowns, thanks to new and emerging media, Olympic stories now belong to everyone.
More than 250 million photos are uploaded by the world’s 800 million Facebook users every day. We experience daily life differently now than even four years ago. We participate in large events like the Olympic Games using technology, making this engagement more interactive.
“Planning for the use of social media before it was available led to the success of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games,” says Burke Taylor, Executive Producer for Vancouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. This allowed for the Vancouver 2010 organizers to promote and cover the Games in new ways.
“Ever since 2010, Olympic Games coverage has evolved,” says Nathalie Cook, Marketing Vice President for Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium. “It used to be a 30 or 60 second spot, and that was the story.” For London 2012, the Consortium started with social media. “In July (2011), we went hard on social marketing; Facebook, Twitter and our News Reader,” says Cook.” In the spring of 2012, we’ll have news, sports and surveys up on video.”
Cook says: “We knew that we could engage Canadians if they got to know the athletes.” More than 200 athletes have been sharing their stories on the Consortium’s Facebook site. This includes hurdles hopeful Priscilla Lopes-Schliep. She has posted photos of her new baby girl. New media means more people can follow the Games.
For London 2012, there will be an effort to engage immigrant Canadians. The Consortium will be telling the stories of athletes like Carol Huynh. She was Canada’s first gold medalist in Wrestling (Beijing 2008). Her family settled in the small town of New Hazelton, B.C. after leaving Vietnam as refugees.
There are lots of Canadians coming from countries where different sports are very popular and they could become viewers. So the Consortium is now researching “where new Canadians are coming from and what sports they follow,” says Cook. They are very interested in how new Canadians watch the Games. The media reaches out to die-hard sports fans and big event watchers. But there is also a “whole other group of people from countries who do well in Olympic sports,” says Cook. They want to know what will motivate new Canadians to get more involved in the Games.
In the past, there were fewer considerations to be made. A media campaign was simply how a message was rolled out to a passive public audience. Now the audience is active. Today’s media users are participants. While television is known as a “lean back” medium, social technology is “lean forward.” Fans want information that is personal, customized and live.
“In Vancouver, the tablets hadn’t launched yet, when we started our campaign. Even then, the unveiling of the Team Canada uniform almost crashed our website,” remembers Cook. “Now they’re ubiquitous. Now our web content has to be smart phone and tablet friendly. It’s very much a multi-screen approach.”
As a result, traditional print media, such as newspapers and magazines play a much smaller role. “Print does not give us the same reach as the other media,” explains Cook.
Television plays a follow-up role to the more immediate stories that are covered on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Some of this is driven by cost. YouTube is cheap, but a TV campaign can be very expensive. This shift is also changing how people are now viewing the Olympic Games.
The media also helps connect people through large-scale marketing efforts like the Red Mittens Campaign. The Red Mittens were part of the Olympic Torch Relay uniform for Vancouver 2010. “Three and a half million pairs of red and white mittens sold for $10 each during the Games,” says Dennis Kim, the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Executive Director for Brand Marketing. The Consortium and Hudson’s Bay Company helped make people aware of the mittens. ”People still hang onto their mittens because it reminds them of the Games.”
The mittens helped Canadians show their support for the Team. New mittens are being released to support the Canadian Olympic Team competing in London. Trampoline gymnast Karen Cockburn from Toronto, springboard diver Jennifer Abel from Quebec and World Champion canoer Mark Oldershaw from Burlington, Ontario are modeling the mittens.
Creating a successful campaign requires using multi-media to deliver a catchy message. Once message is developed, it is a question of how best to get the message out. How can Canadians be involved in the message? How can we keep the message going? In drafting the campaign, “story boards” are created to plan how the message can be delivered in many different but related ways. This can include using Twitter to communicate in-the-moment tweets, or posting stats on a webpage. It means uploading photos to Facebook, sending an invite, or creating a new app for someone’s smart phone or tablet. The possibilities are endless.
The Consortium isn’t alone in using multi-media to attract Canada’s Olympic fans. The Canadian Olympic Committee is making their website, Canada’s first stop for athlete information. The site will be the homepage for the Canadian Olympic Team, and will tell the athletes’ stories. It will have new videos, one-on-one interviews, feature articles, the history of the Canadian Olympic Team, and up-to-the minute results and stats. The site will link fans to the athletes’ websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter. The Canadian Olympic Team athletes are Canada’s best ambassadors for excellence, fair play and perseverance and the website will give Canadian Olympic fans a personal look at their Olympic heroes.
The challenge, says Cook, is that “people’s expectations of media providers have skyrocketed. Audiences are fractured. People are just going to where their interests are.”For broadcasters and journalists, it requires patience and passion, weekend work and night shifts. “It does demand some sacrifices,” says Cook.
The Olympic brand is one of the most recognized in the world. But it is the creative geniuses that help get the fans excited in following the Olympic Games. The Olympic Rings are easily recognized, but Olympic media coverage makes global fans.