The golden brand. What the Olympics got right.
The 2024 Olympics won gold. Viewership numbers for TV and digital broke records. 30 million people tuned into NBC Universal’s platforms each day, which is a 74% increase over the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
Marketers can learn a lot from the Olympics’ success.
Lesson #1: Create a community.
The Olympics bring people together. People feel a sense of social connectedness through a common goal.
Being part of a community can make us feel as though we are part of something greater than ourselves. It provides opportunities to connect with people and feel supported.
The Olympics lets people across the world share national pride as they cheer for their country’s athletes.
Lesson #2: Entertain your customers.
The Olympics are the world’s biggest sporting celebration and provide a rush of entertainment. We were glued to our devices as we witnessed superhuman abilities across a variety of sports.
The Olympics’ high engagement value is also due to the “new” factor. Breaking, sport climbing, skateboarding, and surfing made their debut at the Olympics this year. Novelty is entertaining.
Paris wrapped up two and a half extraordinary weeks of Olympic sports and emotion with a star studded show that featured many celebs including Tom Cruise who, in typical “Mission Impossible” form, dropped from the top of France’s national stadium while H.E.R. played guitar.
Marketers strive to share memorable experiences, messages, images, and feelings to create a connection between their brand and their customer. While we all love data, sometimes stories and experiences create long lasting memories.
The Olympics are pros at making memories. It’s about close-ups of champions biting their medals to footage of athletes winning swimming races by one one-hundredth of a second. It’s about sharing stories of the athletes’ lives far away from the Paris games. People remember stories.
Lesson #4: Be Consistent.
The Olympic logo is one of the most recognizable brand symbols in the world. Designed in 1913 by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, it still features the five interlocking rings, each a different color, which symbolize unity, inclusion, and excellence.
The opening and closing ceremonies attracted viewers because we love seeing the parade of extraordinary athletes, a display of participating nations’ flags and the raising and lowering of the Olympic flag. Yesterday, the grand finale featured a celebrity-filled spectacle in France’s national stadium and from Long Beach in Southern California. Following tradition, the French capital handed over hosting duties for the Summer Games to the next city in line: Los Angeles in 2028.
Want help building a medal-winning brand?
Let’s talk! laura@vivalabrand.com
