Seen in Contagious Magazine
Olympic Round-Up! There’s been plenty of Olympic activity blowing our
tiny minds this week, starting with the staggering opening ceremony. If
the fusion of digital technology and performance art on a truly
biblical scale sounds like the sort of time-wasting you’re into, head
to the BBC’s lovely iPlayer service to catch it again. It’ll be up till Friday.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00cwh7g/
In a frenzy of topicality, the Contagious team has compiled a list of the Olympic happenings raising eyebrows in our world. As sponsors go head to head, accusations of ‘technological doping’ get flung around like 12-year-old gymnasts and our great political leaders ignore the situation in Georgia in favour of the women’s beach volleyball, it’s hard to debate the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ tagline…
1) adidas paid $190m for their official sponsorship. Yet who lit the Olympic flame? None other than Li Ning,
ex-Olympian and founder of one of adidas’ biggest competitors in China.
Strung on a high-wire, he drifted for several minutes in front of 15%
(1bn) of the world’s population as a timely reminder to the big guns at
adidas that money can’t buy you everything. Makes you wonder about the
nature of official sponsorship. There’s a great Business Week
article about the whole debacle here, which includes the following gem:
"If I had to guess, I would say the uniform was from Li Ning's
company," says Wang Zhong, a 32-year-old executive assistant in Beijing
who watched the opening ceremony on TV at home. "Don't they sponsor the
Olympic uniforms?" www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2008/
gb20080811_303782.htm
2) There’s Olympic swimming records breaking left right and centre, with American Michael Phelps
claiming his fifth gold in as many days in the 200m freestyle and
shaving almost a second off the previous record (also his). Swimming,
for the record, is a sport in which victory is normally claimed in hundredths of a second. Is this anything to do with the Speedo LZR swimsuit,
hailed as a miracle breakthrough by those sponsored by Speedo and a
f*cking disaster by those who aren’t? Find out how it works here: www.weshow.com/uk/p/36428/speedo_lzr_racer
_swinsuit
3) Back to the BBC again. As the first Olympics in which web 2.0 and all its attendant applications have been truly put to the test, we salute Auntie Beeb for her wonderfully comprehensive coverage. Not only is a squadron of live reporters assailing the firewall with superfast opinion and coverage, they’ve also got the iPlayer, a Twitter feed, a Flickr stream, a desktop widget featuring their own Olympic monkey character, user commentary, interactive maps of the venues, podcasts and games. Due to the 8-hour time difference, Olympi-enthusiasts outside of Asia are relying on digital means of communication to get their updates, and they don’t come much more up-to-date than this. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics
On a similar note, here’s Kaiser Kuo at Ogilvy Beijing’s take on ‘The First Web 2.0 Olympics’: http://digitalwatch.ogilvy.com.cn/en/?p=307
4) A lovely integrated global campaign from Timberland launches with a TV spot entitled ‘Podium’, in which a single hiker’s treks up a mountain to discover his “personal podium” at its summit. Created by Leagas Delaney, ‘Podium’, a ‘making of video and a video documenting the 360 degree view of the shooting location in British Columbia, Canada will be hosted on www.timberland.com/podium, along with an interactive game.
5) Elsewhere, official sponsor Coca-Cola has been taking advantage of the massive crowds surrounding the Olympics many venues, setting up Bluetooth hotspots to deliver branded content to those opting in. Restaurants, hotels, and bars around the city will see the transmitters installed. Smart move, Coke – go where your audience is.
6) More branded content – Johnson & Johnson’s baby products have launched a TV and online campaign in which Olympic athletes say thanks to their mothers for all the years of love, hard work and driving them to training. Real footage showing the now-terrifyingly evolved athletes as teeny innocent bundles of joy contributes to the tear-jerking, conceived by Lowe in New York. The Contagious team would like to thank their own mothers for recognizing their lack of natural sporting ability and tactfully withdrawing them from competition. www.thanksmomonline.com/us/
7) And finally, while we’re on the subject of tear-jerking, the Contagious team has decided that listening to commentators reporting photo-finishes involving their own countrymen is one of our favourite things. For reference, please see the heart-warming victory of British swimmers Rebecca Adlington and Jo Jackson, and commentator Bob Ballard’s delighted commentary. We challenge you not to smile (start the action from 5’30’’): www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00cqbpf/
