Sponsorship Leveraging Case Studies–Sydney 2000 Olympic Games

Abstract

It does not get much bigger for a company whose management decides to sponsor the world's most aspirational sports and cultural property–the Olympic Games. The fanfare that comes with associating with the five Olympic rings is balanced by the commercial requirement to produce a net return on funds invested in order to justify the sponsorship. After reviewing the historic consumer effects of Olympic sponsorship, this article presents three product category case studies from the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Sponsors’ leveraging strategies and competitors’ ambush marketing tactics are outlined and assessed in terms of their sponsorship awareness levels via four distinct yet interrelated longitudinal surveys.

KEYWORDS:

• ambush marketing
• case studies
• Olympics
• sponsorship
• sports

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Information regarding companies’ Olympic-related marketing activities were sourced from the Australian advertising and marketing magazine, B&T Weekly, which provided comprehensive coverage of the event. The authors would also like to thank e-newsletter, Around the Rings, for the supply of various Olympic-related information.

Notes

∗Survey Question: “What was your favorite television ad during the Olympic coverage?”

∗∗Sample size: 955

∗∗∗Victoria Bitter (VB) is a national beer brand owned by Carlton & United Breweries