Olympic Brand Research Articles

Framing ambush marketing as a legal issue: An Olympic perspective

This paper examines the emerging trend of host countries using legislation to protect the Olympic brand and control ambush marketing. More specifically, it will discuss Canada's Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act in depth. Issues related to framing ambush marketing as a legal issue as opposed to a business issue are examined. The consequences of placing ambush marketing in a legal context are considered from a legal and a business management perspective.

The Web 2.0 Olympics

The Beijing Olympics was the largest sports mega-event in history and represents an opportunity to assess the dynamics of the media sport cultural complex in a post-broadcast age. This article argues that the internet and web are transforming and intensifying the digital mediatization of Olympic sport in terms of the amount and types of content available across multiple platforms. From the perspective of Olympic and sports officials, these developments possess a Janus-faced character, simultaneously offering additional avenues to promote the Olympic brand and experience globally and challenging their capacity to maintain control over Olympic related media in online environments. This situation is the result of long-established broadcast media strategies colliding with the networking capacity of Web 2.0 and the operation and popularity of ‘social software’ such as blogs and Facebook. The evidence presented is drawn from Olympic policy documents, media reports and interviews with sports officials and athletes.

Studies on Beijing Olympic Game's Spiritual Legacy: Brand Value

The article analyzes the Beijing Olympic brand value from the dimensions of nation, cities, corporations and people and draws the conclusion that the Beijing Olympic Games shows the country's brand value is harmony, confidence and tolerance; the city conveys the brand value of tradition, modern and green; corporate marketing broadcasts the value of autonomy, quality, value and the people express its brand value from the aspects of civilization, passion and smiling. The brand value of Beijing Olympic Games is an important part of the Olympic spiritual heritage and doing research on it will has a positive effect on the construction of spiritual civilization.

Beijing Olympics: a New Brand of China

The article analyzes Beijing Olympic brand value from the dimension of nation, cities, enterprises and citizens. The author holds the view that, the nation displays in the Beijing Olympic Games the brand value of harmony, confidence and tolerance; cities convey the brand value of tradition, modern, and green; enterprises market the brand value of independence, quality, and value; citizens express the brand value of civilization, passion and smile. The brand value of Beijing Olympic Games is a significant part of the Olympic spiritual heritage and research on it will have a positive effect on spiritual civilization construction.

Leveraging the Olympic brand through the reconciliation of corporate and consumers' brand perceptions

Over the past 30 years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has adopted marketing as a key focus of its operations. In turn, the organisation has developed a variety of sophisticated and widely acclaimed marketing practices such as its TOP programme. It has also supported a large number of studies on Olympic marketing. One important observation resulting from these studies is that corporate managers' and consumers' perceptions of the Olympic brand differ from each other's views on a number of areas. The current research seeks to understand this dichotomy and to provide the Olympic brand with insightful direction. We offer specific recommendations to the IOC and their partners, as well as suggestions for future research.

The Olympic brand, ambush marketing and clutter

A qualitative research methodology of 10 in-depth interviews with worldwide Olympic The Olympic Program (TOP) sponsors and senior executives of the Olympic marketing programmes, this research provides a unique investigation into one of the sport world's most powerful brand. Specifically, this research examines ambush marketing and advertising clutter from a corporate point of view. Results suggest that these issues remain a threat to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its corporate partners. Some essential elements that the IOC must address include: (a) brand management; (b) brand protection; (c) protection of sponsors' rights; (d) consumer education; (e) fully integrated marketing communications programme and (f) National Organising Committees (NOCs)' education in marketing and brand management. Corporate partners must activate their sponsorship rights and work, in close collaboration with the IOC and NOCs, to truly understand the Olympic brand and integrate it into their own marketing communications programme aimed at consumers.