Turf War

For u.s. companies, olympics sponsorships strengthen their global profile, while providing a chance to score points with TV viewers on the home front.

But marketers are raising their flags around the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics to build business in China as avidly as they have clung to the Stars and Stripes in past Olympics.

McDonald’s is capping its China-based marketing with a “China Wins, You Win” promotion, putting that phrase and game pieces on cups and sandwich cartons. Some game pieces offer a variety of prizes from companion sponsors if Chinese athletes win any Olympic event. Other game pieces provide instant prizes of food or beverages.

Beijing buses will be wrapped with the McDonald’s arches, and a large electronic billboard will also plug the fast food chain in a busy downtown location.

The capper: Chinese customers will be able to watch the games at 630 McDonald’s where TV screens are being installed for the big event — the result of a deal with CCTV, the Chinese national broadcast service. “We have a phenomenal platform to make the most of the Olympics by creating a place where people can gather and watch the games,” says McDonald’s China spokesperson Lisa Howard.

With 80% of McDonald’s 940 restaurants in China open on a 24/7 basis, that figures to solidify its Olympics connection.

McDonald’s orchestrated a synchronized cheer among 1,200 Beijing college students to set a Guinness World Record as part of a celebration 100 days in advance of the start of the games this month. Crews in Chinese McDonald’s will be shouting Olympics cheers at their stations behind the counters.

MARKET SATURATION

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola is pulling out the stops for its global initiatives around the summer games. The global soft drink giant is distributing cans in 150 countries that will carry the brand’s name in Chinese characters as well as in English. The Mandarin characters — first used on Coke cans in China in 1927 — sound like “Coca-Cola,” but translate to “Delicious Happiness.”

That’s just what Coke aims to achieve in a mega-marketing effort focusing heavily on Beijing itself. Coke plans to do sampling to the tune of 26 million servings of its various brands to athletes, Olympics officials and fans attending the games.

Coke spokesperson Petro Kacur says the games give Coke a shot to reach consumers in China and around the world in what he terms “our largest marketing effort ever.”

Well entrenched in China with 35 bottling facilities, Coke’s presence will be conspicuous during the games. It will have a showcase pavilion on the Olympic Green, a 20-meter tall Coke bottle made of LED panels at The Place, a major Beijing retail center, and an Olympics pin-trading center in Beijing’s Chao Yang Park.

Approximately 31% of respondents to a recent poll conducted by China’s largest market research company correctly identified Coke as an Olympics sponsor and 70% opined that Olympics sponsorship confirms the quality of a company’s products. As Coke and McDonald’s feature Chinese athletes in their advertising, both figure to bask in the afterglow of these games.

PERILOUS PARTICIPATION

But the specter of political demonstrations, which dogged the Coke-sponsored Olympic Torch tour in the form of Tibetan rights protestors, could cast a cloud over the “Delicious Happiness.”

“It’s a very risky situation for sponsors,” says Tim Calkins, marketing professor at the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “There are certainly political issues that are out there, and sponsors have to be concerned that they could be tarnished by their involvement in the games.”

Sponsors are keeping their corporate fingers crossed.

“We hope that people who seek to express their opinions can do so without damaging the values the Olympics seek to bring to the world,” says Coke’s Kacur.

Another more tangible specter hanging over the games is the poor air quality in Beijing, documented in a BBC news report several weeks ago.

“It’s very clear to us that the games are not going to be the greenest games ever,” says Matthias Hansen, GE international director of brand advertising and Olympic marketing.

A giant wind farm outside Beijing boasting 120 GE turbines attests to the company’s efforts to address the rampant problems of air and water pollution throughout the country.

China is already a huge market for GE, which has a goal of generating $10 billion in sales in the country, according to Hansen, who says GE has been targeting Chinese business and government officials with its marketing since 2004.

“The main communication strategy is communicating sustainable product,” says Hansen. “The Olympics are basically providing a good theme.”

GE’s showcase Imagination Center expects as many as 10,000 visitors per day, including members of government delegations.

The center’s exhibit is built around the five Chinese elements of wood (related to windmills), earth (renewable energy), fire (as light), metal (in transportation) and water.

“Water scarcity in China is a huge issue, so we’re trying to help rural technology develop usable water,” says Hansen.

GE Healthcare technology is another focal point of the Imagination Center. The company boasts sponsorships in the electrocardiogram and ultrasound categories and is supplying that technology to guard against any critical health problems among the athletes.

“They don’t want to see any sudden death event, so they have to be screened,” says Hansen.

GE, NBC’s parent company, will also screen three new TV spots during the Beijing games.

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