UP413 Paris 2024 Digital Debrief - Which brands popped, and why?

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are over, the medals have been won and lost.
And now the sports business conversation shifts to who won the other game, played between some of the biggest companies in the world, each seeking to stand out in the crowd of global and local brands sponsoring, or ambushing, the Olympics. 

What worked, what didn’t and how has the proliferation of digital channels changed how TOP partners and others approach the job of associating with the greatest show on earth.

Our guests are two experts in digital marketing. 

Alex Balfour was head of digital at London 2012 and is co-founder of Generate Digital.

RJ Kraus is head of sponsorship intelligence at KORE Software and was co-founder of Hookit, the sponsorship measurement business acquired by KORE in 2022. 

To help frame the conversation, we refer to all new KORE research insight fresh from the Games. You can access this data here. 

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Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome to Unofficial Partner. The sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. The Olympic games are over and the medals have been won and lost. And now the sports business conversation shifts to who won the other games, the one between brands sponsoring or ambushing the Olympics. What worked, what didn't. And how has the proliferation of digital channels changed? How top partners and others approach the job of associating with the greatest show on earth? My two guests are experts in digital marketing. Alex Balfour was head of digital at London 2012, and is co-founder of generate digital. RJ cross is head of sponsorship intelligence at core software and was co-founder of hookups. The spongy measurement business acquired by core in 2022. To help frame the conversation. We refer to new core research from the games? And you can access this data in the show notes to the podcast.

Richard Gillis UP: 0:51

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. And you can join our community of tens of thousands of people. By signing up to our weekly newsletter on sub stack, which goes out every Thursday. Or find us in the usual places, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tik, TOK, and Instagram on Unofficial Partner.

Richard Gillis: 1:14

We're in that period of time. We're in that post Olympics conversation in sports business turns to what won. And you've got a lot of people and a lot of corporations that have spent a great deal of money. And then we're now looking at, well, what worked, what didn't, what popped, what didn't, what bits of marketing, what didn't work. Activity around the games to people remember, and we're starting to get early data in on that, and we'll share some of that as we go through the conversation today. And then there's broader questions, I think, in terms of, there's the digital element of Olympic marketing is now, and we're going to dive into that. And then there are some questions there about what it's doing. What is it testing a model that has been there and we can argue the toss about its starting point, so the top model, how robust is it? does it fit the digital world? Those are the sort of big overarching questions which are hanging over this micro conversation. first of all, RJ, thank you very much for your time. Welcome.

RJ Kraus: 2:15

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Richard Gillis: 2:17

And Alex, welcome. Welcome back.

Alex Balfour: 2:19

Thank you.

Richard Gillis: 2:19

I want a gauge of what you thought, just give me general impressions. So RJ, I'm going to ask you for your quick feedback. we're a few days out of the closing ceremony, so it's still, it's still in our heads. What did you think? How was it for you in terms of the Olympic Games? What's your broad perception? Success? Failure? give us a picture.

RJ Kraus: 2:36

Sure. Yeah, I think success, right out of the gate. For me, it was the most interesting one to watch, because there was, a lot of it streamed, so it was easy to access, despite, any time difference. So we watched on Peacock here in the U. S., and, it was great to just have that at your fingertips, to not have to watch live. And so we ended up watching a lot more, on TV and then noticed on social as well. There's just a lot more buzz. I feel like a lot of people were talking about the Olympics on social, in person, talking about big moments, big events. So I didn't feel that Tokyo likely because it was COVID times, but even Rio, didn't feel that at all. And it shows in the numbers as well. I mean, we're seeing that this was the most socially engaged Olympics yet. double the engagement, double the posts, 8x the video viewership. so it's, by all accounts, at this point it seems like a success and a big, improvement over Tokyo.

Richard Gillis: 3:35

Okay. So we've got a nice transatlantic aspect to this. So you're in San Diego. Alex, how was it for you?

Alex Balfour: 3:41

Yeah, I definitely echo. it was a tremendous success. and I think looking back over the last two, three summer cycles, Rio, they managed not to break it just about, Tokyo managed not to be broken by COVID. And I think Paris has kind of broken the bans and set the games free again, and they definitely did a great job. I think from a digital point of view, there's always a digital first aspect to games. I have to bear in mind that there was a website even as far back as at Lanta96, so there's been some digital element, but I think this games is truly end to end digital. And some of that is the boring stuff around cloud based production and IP delivery of video, but also things like tickets, which actually had never been done end to end digital, And they pulled it off and it worked. but it was just a proper celebratory global games, that I think went deeper and broader in terms of both engagement and access than any games have gone before, especially across digital channels for sure.

Richard Gillis: 4:42

And just on that, in terms of where is the Olympics in relation to the marketplace generally? is it follower or is it leading? Is it, is this a moment where everyone copies it or are the Olympics actually just catching up in terms of that relationship with digital?

Alex Balfour: 4:57

I think it's still a unique property. because of the sheer intensity and volume of activity that takes place over a very short period of time. you can't really consume it even through digital channels easily. and because of that, there's always going to be A role for linear, editorial approach and for some degree of curation, whether that's curation by a studio exec, whether it's an editor, or whether it's an algorithm, or whether it's just friends of friends. you can't consume everything. So you need some guidance and some steer, even if you don't realize it. in that unique aspect, it's simply a massive challenge to get the thing across on any channel. I would say, though, compared to other events which have a simpler brief, it's still, especially in social terms, has been a bit of a laggard. I think that, just looking at simple metrics like numbers of social followers, the Olympics doesn't sit alongside its obvious peers. But I think now, in terms of numbers, it's pulled up and we're at the same sort of level as, the other biggie, which is the Football World Cup. I think pound for pound, it's competing on a day to day basis, as it should be, but generally the Olympics does struggle because of its execution overhead to innovate, and you wouldn't normally look at the games as a place to do things radically different, but it can do things culturally. It can set new parameters. so yeah, if you think in terms of, you know, Things that maybe two, three years ago, you might've thought, well, the Olympics would trailblaze around, say, NFTs or AI. Maybe there's some back office stuff there, but nothing really. but I think in terms of sort of cultural impacts, a lot on significant.

RJ Kraus: 6:38

Yeah. the point about, the Olympics as an entity compared to, let's say the NBA or World Cup or, Premier League, That's where you see the difference. IOC is just not a heavily followed entity itself, but the event is just so much broader. there's so much more depth. there's athletes, there's NOCs, there's NGBs. And that adds to it. And that's where a lot of the follower ship comes from, and engagement. So if you compare the Olympics over, the couple of weeks span, four weeks span to world cup, it's nearly on par. You compare it to a full season of, the NFL, let's say, it is, you know, Time for time, apples to apples. it exceeds. So, yeah, I mean, when you look at it, as a global footprint and just the sheer, vastness of it, I'd say it leads, in all

Richard Gillis: 7:30

So there's a, there's a question for both of you again, before we Jump into the specifics is, I sometimes wonder about the size of the audience now and has digital increased. The size of the total audience for the Olympics, or, you know, has there just been a shift? Do we just watch it differently with the same, you know, the same number of people doing things differently or has the pie got bigger? What, because obviously as you said at the the beginning RJ is that, you know, it's the biggest digital social and it's always going to be, isn't it? So each, you know, Atlanta, Sydney, or whatever the first, you know, the dot com era that digital engagement is always going to be going up because that's just where the, that's how we live our lives now. But I'm wondering about the total audience and whether it's done something to that.

RJ Kraus: 8:16

It's a great question. I think that, a lot of that will be determined here in the next couple of weeks once we sift through, the data, I think, just qualitatively, it feels like there's a lot more interest around the games than there ever have been, and I think primarily because there's just more access to the content and the stories, and I think social media drives, and digital drives a lot of that. you see people, even friends, like in my own personal experience, friends that maybe never really talked about or cared about the Olympics, sharing things on Instagram with me, moments, good or bad, around the games. and I, you know, that's new to me.

Alex Balfour: 8:51

Yeah, I think, I think depth and breadth definitely, and therefore more resonance into more spaces. And I think all the participants from the IOC through the rights holding broadcasters, through the sponsors, through even the athletes themselves. It implicitly from the way that they operate, have reached out to more people across more types of platform. So at the very least, you can say that if the audience is in headcount terms, the same or similar, there's more touch points where they're engaging, and different types of stories in different ways. And obviously, you know, NBC is a huge, figure in this whole piece and they really for the first time committed to live coverage of everything which traditionally they hadn't and commercially wanted to keep everything into prime time and they've now broken that wall and taken credit in terms of viewership and numbers for it and identified that actually as a commercial opportunity, not a loss. I think in terms of other broader reach aspects, you know, the Olympics is slightly unique in international reach. So when you have a feature athlete or team, from a different country, which is much rarer, in a big competition like an NBA or NFL or even a World Cup, you then end up with brokering in the audience. certainly, you know, Brazil has been a grower, China has been around for some time, India has opened up and the IOC have actively reached out through, Hindi Instagram channel and Hindi dedicated sort of apps and web. we had a Pakistani gold medalist. We had a very successful Filipino weightlifter. there some traction in Indonesia. So, where there is a participant or a team, as I said, from a populous nation, suddenly you open up new opportunity. And certainly looking at, some of the wider data, I've been looking at some of the, for example, daily active user numbers on Meta. India saw, Audiences go up by a multiple of six, Venezuela by five, Korea by eight, Brazil by five. overall meta reach was 329 million daily actives on the last day of the games, up from 164. So a doubling, but in some territories, significant uplift. and that, that's a function of how many teams are participating and where teams do well, they spike interest. So I would hesitate to say, There's definitely an overall increase as well as a breadth and depth increase in existing markets where they're already keen about the games.

Richard Gillis: 11:07

There's also something in there about depth or the, the, the nature of the relationship. as well, isn't it? It feels like, I don't know, because of the increase in digital touch points, as you're saying, there are going to be more people, but quite a few of those people will probably have a shallower relationship with it. Rather than it being, you know, television is I don't want to get into how TV has measured itself all these times, you know, there's a whole dark arts there that we all, you know, know about, but there is something there The nature of the relationship. I'm not saying it matters particularly. What you, gain from the big number. People always say, well, Oh yeah, but they're only touching it. They're only sharing WhatsApps. They're only doing, you there is an engagement process there.

RJ Kraus: 11:51

The key is that they're engaging, right? Versus, just watching. and I think there's also a ripple effect, right? if you identify with an athlete that you saw, you follow them on social, and now you're connected through to the next games or to their non Olympic competition. So. I think, this definitely might be a little shallower,

Alex Balfour: 12:11

I think so much of it is about storytelling and I think one thing I've neglected of course was the interesting gender mix of the games. The gender mix of audiences generally, it's not so much male dominated as almost every other sport or sporting event and most of the key participants are female athletes, not male athletes, certainly in terms of stories that are told and things that people want to hear about, whether it's Simone Biles or Rebecca Andrade or Elona Mayer, I'm pronouncing all their names horribly, they're the key figures of the games because there's very few athletes who come to the games with An existing reputation from another sport outside of tennis and basketball, obviously, or maybe golf, who are, known professional athletes outside of anything Olympic. so they, they're the biggest figures and often, you know, they're the best storytellers anyway. so they end up with a lot more resonance, but I think that brings interesting perspectives because a lot of Olympic storytelling is not about performance. It's all sorts of other things and whoever tells their story the best, tends to win out.

RJ Kraus: 13:16

Yeah, that's a great call out. we were kind of in the middle of our report that we're creating for the Olympics. And one of the key highlights is, the amount of engagement that's coming from women. 2X the video views over men. significantly higher engagement, significantly higher brand value driven. most other sports are male dominated, but it's really interesting and great to see that the Olympics are, definitely bias more to women.

Richard Gillis: 13:38

So into this picture that we're painting and we're, you know, in terms of just this, again, keeping an eye on the digital, games I've got a question which will be almost impossible to answer today, but I'm going to throw it out anyway, which is do the packages that sponsors buy, do they reflect this world? That you're painting today, or is it, are they buying a previous era? You know, has, has the commercial has the top package or, you know, a sponsorship or a local deal or USOC deal or whatever it is that they're buying at whatever entry point, does it reflect this world? Or is there a lag and we're going to sort of see that does the commercial market catch up with this picture that we're, we're painting? Cause it feels like, as I say, each games grows, digital becomes more significant. And it feels to me, there's probably I'm, if I'm Visa or Coke, or if I'm, you know, someone else I'm buying the previous. Quadrennials,

RJ Kraus: 14:34

That's what it feels like to me. I mean, it seems like more traditional, traditional bias when things are moving more digitally. I think there are some brands that are doing it right, doing partnerships specifically with the athletes and the NGBs and creating content that can live on social and digital. but yeah, the major, you know, the tops, are, it seems to be still kind of a traditional

Richard Gillis: 14:58

also buying eight years quite often, aren't they? They're buying long term. So there's, I don't know whether it's up to them to future proof their own deals. It's, I'm not, I'm not pleading for them

Alex Balfour: 15:08

Yeah, well, they're buying an activation opportunity and, you know, the Olympic buyers always been about access to the rings and not an awful lot else. so then you have to work out what to do, but in some ways, Weirdly, that's actually a more modern way of buying your sponsorship now, because you know, you don't get any access to LEDs or in stadium branding unless you'll have the rare lucky carve outs like an Omega or a Panasonic around a functional use. but, now I would say increasingly sponsors aren't, they'll acknowledge the value of the in stadium visibility and they can all mark it down to some other rate or other, But that's not really what they want to buy and then increasingly don't necessarily, depending on the event, want to buy the hospitality or the tickets either. They want to buy the ability to cut through to an audience with storytelling, which is where digital comes in. So in a funny kind of way, what might have looked old fashioned is becoming a bit more relevant again, or at least they're in the realm of the challenge that everyone else now has, and how do you deal with that? I think what's been really interesting in this games is that there's always been, or for some time there has been availability of, advertising on, Olympic, own properties, Web and app, went back to when I was running same for London, we were able to position that no one was very interested in it at the time because it didn't feel like a very exciting buy, but there were a couple of buyers, that has now expanded into social. And what's happened in this cycle, which is quite interesting is the final emergence, which I think has been, you know, later in. In with the Olympics and some other properties of, of types of branded content, which is both stuff that's, brand association with editorial strands of content and also stuff created directly with brands and, and the IOC and, and a couple of things that actually were editorial strands in the last, game cycle. For example, metal alerts. You know, the IC pushes out a metal alert. Everyone does a metal alert, but they have the, if you like, the official one. pushed out mainly on Twitter, this time around sponsored by Samsung, actually gave them a massive share of voice. the, other interesting asset that we saw, very visibly on camera was the Samsung Victory Selfie, as they call it, which is holding up the Samsung phone or offering it to the athletes to then take a, static, selfie, which pretty much all the athletes, were happy to do. There's been some interesting conversation about that as to whether That product placement is a step too far in medal podiums. I actually think it kind of worked really well and the fact that the athletes liked it tells you its own story. but that's a sort of really interesting hybrid of digital and physical. and then this time around, there were quite a few, probably less visible in some markets, but, the IOC has carved out the opportunity to run video. it's one space that's very protected around the games compared with, say, a video game. World Cup, European Championships, definitely NBA. You know, there's a pretty widespread use of video by the rights holder and their sponsors. Not the case for the Olympics, but there's a carve out for almost a hundred territories. some sponsors like Coca Cola Alliance, Deloitte were using those rights, but could only deploy them in certain territories. So you wouldn't have seen it in the U. S. for example. but they used archive in the U. S. and footage from games. For the first time in other territories, which is pretty interesting. I think the ISC is moving into that branded content and storytelling territory. which is definitely challenging. All the brands want to do it. And, there are winners and losers about how you do that because you're competing for visibility with everyone else telling great stories. But it's the space which actually the Olympics is now on. So, in a sense, they've kind of caught up with themselves. by not having all that in stadium stuff, which now nobody seems to really care about anyway.

RJ Kraus: 18:43

Yeah, storytelling is the key, right? And I think that with social media, the ability to boost content that's already going viral, is really to the advantage of brands and sponsors. Now, I mean, we saw the most viral posts, of the games was actually a branded post from Google. Victor, Montalvo, the U. S. Breakdancer, using Gemini to ask about how he should share his experience with his family. And so that drove 67 million views, right? undoubtedly, a lot of that, I'm sure, was paid. but, the reach that a brand can amplify, with branded content, help the athletes as well as themselves. if it's organic and it's natural and integrated and it, aligns with the athlete, athlete's story, I think it'd be really, really powerful. And that's,

Richard Gillis: 19:32

Can I just ask a question on that, RJ? Because it's interesting because there is how, how organic, how authentically organic. As it is a viral post like that. I'm just, again, as a, this is probably probably an idiot question in this environment, but I'm always interested in what that means. And I don't, I'm not sure it matters particularly, but I'm just interested in how these things become viral. Because obviously we all now are pre programmed thing. Ah, well, it's, it's, there's some there's some magic going on there, some spend.

RJ Kraus: 20:03

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a tricky line to toe, but the right brands with the right creative can do it. I think, yeah, you can miss the mark pretty easily where, you know, it has to be, authentic meaning that, it touches a nerve, and it aligns with whoever the subject is of the content, right? So in this case, the example, around, Victor, you know, that it had pictures of his family. it felt real. and I think that I think it was real. I mean, it seemed real and it seemed like something that, could actually occur. and at the same time was promoting, Google's product. but it was more about how do you use this product to engage with your family and experience what you're experiencing. So I thought that was a really, they did a really good job there. I know New Balance, did some similar things With their athletes, like in winning moments, where they're really just kind of amplifying, those gold moments, victories, heartbreak, whatever it might be. I think that's where authenticity comes from is knowing that, you're staying true to the athlete or whoever is. Well, the content.

Alex Balfour: 21:04

it's a high bar to getting the genuine storytelling right. And if you get cut through it works. The stuff that, certainly works is either stuff that's driven by athletes who are there in the space and therefore relevant. So we saw lots of content from, Athletes village, mainly in the early days. It's interesting how kind of athlete visibility is quite high. It's the first few days and then as they go into competition, they tend to post less and do less until they come out the other side and they've won a medal or they're having fun. And then there's meme driven stuff as well where the athletes either jump on a meme or, you know, and then it's really who's best at doing it. That's where someone like Ilona Meyer comes through because she's just very good at making TikToks. Or equally, Kristiansen, I forget his first name, but the Norwegian swimmer who. We, went on a riff about the cupcakes in the village and create a little theme around that, then there's the memes, which are kind of unwitting where it's based on either stills or footage such as the Turkish pistol shooter who then became the meme of the games, you know, through no fault of his own, just through the aesthetic he portrayed. And so a lot of that happens too. and that's kind of footage driven and then where that's video based, that tends to be more in the hands of the rights holders simply because they're the only ones who have access and where that stuff is pretty well policed. but yeah, so it, it, there is a high bar and I think you find you end up, you end up with brands who are being smart about it, mix a bit of everything they do. You know that they jump on branded content that they know is going to jump on action and footage and stuff They know is going to work where they've got access to it. They jump on athletes who they know are going to have visibility They jump on memes where they can play in that field and then the few successful ones cut through as RJ was saying around, you know, actually trying to create bottom up storytelling and hope that what you come out with will win

Richard Gillis: 22:46

what does this mean for the brands and their agencies? Because something happens and you know, these things take off or they don't, and it's that decision making at speed and then, you know, allocating spend, whatever. What is an agency in in this sense? What's the difference between a good one and a bad one? Is it just the, the ability to recognize, okay, that's going to fly. We need to get behind that quickly. And then organizationally, as we all know, it's one thing saying we want to do it quickly, but then you've got a whole sign off procedures and, on the brand side. So just what does that, what does it mean for what an agency is now?

RJ Kraus: 23:20

Yeah, I mean, it's art and science, like, so you have to have, the tooling to identify content quickly and moments quickly. And then you need to have the infrastructure to be able to react quickly. And most importantly, I think you need to have, the creativity to wrap a moment in a really great, story and

Richard Gillis: 23:40

Because you can quite often tell when something has been pre planned because it jars, doesn't it? It's like a, I always think when football commentators have, you know, a sort of line lined up, they know you're going to use it and then they put, they put it in. It's just sounds, it always sounds lame because it just feels like it's not spontaneous. Again, it's interesting that living in that, a TikTok driven world, you can look, Stupid, or you can come across as, you know, it's, it's worse than not doing anything at all is jumping in at the wrong time with the something you've had planned, you know, back in the January meeting,

Alex Balfour: 24:11

There's lots of dialogue about weird uncles around at the moment, but you can definitely come off looking a bit out of touch. but I think you end up with a mix. I mean, the best ones that you end up with a mix of everything. So you definitely want to deliver stuff that you know is going to work. That's your bankers. And then you can have some other stuff in there that might get cut through, but not all brands want to play in that space anyway. And some are quite cut and dried about exactly where they want to position and specific audiences they want to reach. And of course, that's the benefit of digital is that you can target. audiences, in, territories and, demographics that you want to land a message with, which probably isn't going to be a widespread TikTok that's jumping on a meme. It's going to be something more specific. And we certainly seen that from some of the content, opportunities that some of the brands, drove during the games, which were much more focused on specific audiences or specific messaging. and then they just tweak them around. if they're going to run with a clip, then make sure you serve the right clip into the right market because of the athlete in the clip or the sport feature being of interest to people in that market or whatever. there's not that many brands that are super consumery that really want to do that anyway. A lot of them have quite more narrow focused in terms of who they want to reach and what they want to say.

Richard Gillis: 25:21

So RJ, just give us a sense from the, uh, again, it's his early work that you guys have done. What's popped? What, what do you think is, when you look back now, you think, okay, yeah, that this is what we'll remember.

RJ Kraus: 25:36

Yeah. Well, obviously winning moments, drive a lot of engagement. I think, aside from that, it's anything behind the scenes, right. Things that are, that you won't be, wouldn't be privy to normally. and I think like brands that can integrate with that, are really successful. But when we look at the top three viral moments, the first was the Breakdancer post, which was a collab with, with Google. the second was Sam Watson. world record or Olympic record, speed climber. 85 million views against his average, which is around a hundred thousand. So like speed climbing, right? Like not really on the top of anyone's list of what they're watching, but this particular video cut through, cause I mean, it's absolutely amazing, feat, and to watch it, like people that haven't seen that, I think, um, it's surprising, right? So like moments like that, have worked really, really well. and then, you know, obviously like the traditional moments as well. the, torch lighting, for the IOC was their top most viral posts, 44 million views against their average of like a hundred thousand, 50, 000 or so reposts. So, I mean, it's kind of that mix, right? Like traditional Olympic moments, big winning moments. And then behind the scenes, heartfelt kind of. Personality stories

Alex Balfour: 26:50

The sport climbing online community is about the most rabid of all the Olympic sports, so the advocacy for sport climbing by sport climbers is massive. It's quite an interesting one. Other sports that have kind of correlated like skateboarding and BMX and so on there's lots of popular kind of influences in that space, but they're not quite as rabid about the sport per se. It's more the lifestyle, which is really interesting. But, I'd echo that. And I think what's interesting when we talk about the kind of end to end success of digital is that there's probably different experiences in different territories. And now that digital is, you know, can be quite location specific, I think, for example, despite Simone Biles being number one gymnast, I think Rebecca Andrade has slightly higher engagement overall, just simply because of both Brazil and the Brazilian diaspora. You know, likewise, there was a huge amount of visibility on, Japanese Twitter for medal winners and, you know, Twitter massively outperformed in that market so I think you're right. Experience of what was big in your mind's eye because digital now is pervasive and comes in so many local flavors will be some extent determined by where you live and what you saw and digital is no longer a kind of unitary experience. even if all the platforms, outside of China, most of them come from one country, the experience is quite unique now in different territories.

Richard Gillis: 28:05

What about Snoop?

RJ Kraus: 28:08

That's, I was actually just going to bring that up. yeah, I mean, obviously interesting and terrific, series. I'm actually not really certain if that was manufactured or if it was organic. I'm assuming it was a partnership between IOC and, and Snoop, in which case the

Richard Gillis: 28:23

he was working for NBC, I think.

RJ Kraus: 28:24

Right, right, sorry. So yeah, so that was terrific. I mean, massive engagement there, a lot of people sharing the content.

Alex Balfour: 28:31

Yeah, I think that was a big success. Richard, as you know, we've had conversations about there are a few people even within the wider Olympic family who raised an eyebrow at it. But, I'm pretty sure for as a part of a influencer strategy, There was no more successfully introduced influencer. He's almost certainly increased reach and visibility in the U S market. I'm sure his pot rating points for NBC and whatever they spent on him was more than returned on that basis alone. I,

Richard Gillis: 29:00

a day, wasn't it?

Alex Balfour: 29:01

yeah, if true, I think that's a small change compared to the inventory that they would have filled out as a result. and I think it definitely worked and was, broadly embraced by all constituents who, you know, he's almost like a living meme and it's worked. and you see a lot of influence approach, you know, a lot of rights holders do bring in, known influences in different countries. sometimes you get those influences who are known, let's say a Bollywood star. In fact, Samsung were quite successful with Jin, who's one of the BTS singers. He got some very strong visibility for them, but often, you'll find an influencer will come and do their visible bits and pieces, but they're not necessarily additive in the way that they embrace the games or do anything, but Snoop went all in, and that's, I think, what everyone really warmed to. It's not just that he's uber famous and iconic, but the fact that he actually was all over it. Genuinely, you know paid or not genuinely enjoying the events and people could see that and we're riffing off it and I think it's additive for everyone.

Richard Gillis: 29:55

LVMH, what about that? I'm thinking about brands that popped into the arena. You had the opening ceremony, a lot of, again, this feels like a long time ago now, but then a lot of the chatter around social there's this sort of industry conversation where people are jumping, about brands breaking into the sort of hallowed, brand free arena. What did you think? What did you make of them? And that, that sort of, uh, Presentation, because it, it felt like just if it's purely about which brands get remembered afterwards, they'll be up there presumably.

Alex Balfour: 30:29

Definitely everyone jumped up, but I think that's a really interesting proposition. obviously there's a long, interesting history of commercialization. It's going back to L. A. 40 years ago. I think that's actually when the Top Program started, and depending whose story you want to read, and a lot of that was inspired by the L. A. organizing committee and the U. S. C. C. at the time, getting Foursquare behind commercializing the games, and again, depending whose narrative you follow, sort of saving the games from commercial demise. Thanks. And I think that pressure will all come rolling back in 2028 and there'll be some very interesting challenges there between US partners and top partners. they definitely stole the march. and obviously had that visibility during medal presentation and, you know, how organic it was interesting to think about. and I can see that there will be plenty of others who want to similarly position themselves during the next cycles, not just LA, but Milan before that and other winter and summer after, to see how they might play a role. And it's certainly something that the IOC has shown themselves actively open to, you know, the victory selfie obviously being an example. So the sponsors will be getting that when you talk about the agencies getting their hats on and saying what can we do that's definitely critical to games delivery that we can get into camera view that that's part of our brand offer and they can find it they'll definitely suggest it.

RJ Kraus: 31:46

Interestingly enough, though they got a lot of exposure on television, that didn't translate to social, so they're outside the top 30 in terms of total value. 38th actually. Right. So didn't translate. and it definitely didn't have the same impact as World Cup. I mean, with the Ronaldo and the Messi campaign that they pushed through, they were number three World Cup value. the ratio of spend to value was the highest for them of any World Cup, sponsor. but I

Alex Balfour: 32:16

Bear in mind that there will be a domestic sponsor, not an international one. So they would have had less of an international brief, but nonetheless, yeah. The interesting question as to whether, how much of it is, I agree that it weren't very visible on social and how much of it is, is Olympic watchers being sensitive and how much of it is, how many members of the public would say, would make that association or infer something from what they saw.

Richard Gillis: 32:36

There's also a sort of tangible intangible question about what the impact is. Of the numbers, obviously we're talking here about an incredible prestige, luxury brand. And what good it does them being there. I'm just trying to get to that in terms of what the broader message is. Cause often with the Olympics, look, it's the company we keep, you know, we can afford to be here. And so therefore we're a powerful brand. There's an implied power message there. and it's, there's a premiumness. But what else is, what, what's going on, do you think in terms of the broader messages or the advertising or intangibles that are around the Olympics, why it's so valuable to get that TV time at that, you know, during opening, closing ceremonies, during games,

RJ Kraus: 33:23

association with pinnacle moments. Right. you look at the like world cup trophy case. and they want to be there when the world is watching,

Richard Gillis: 33:31

So it's just purely a numbers play for them in terms of this is just something that takes them to a mass

RJ Kraus: 33:35

Well, think less about numbers, more about association. So like that, their brand being associated with one of the most pinnacle moments in sport,

Alex Balfour: 33:45

I think the initial question is why you're at the table is a different one. When you're there, you go for what you can. So that's why I think it is, you take what opportunities are available and if they open up, they open up, likewise, there are global sponsors, Toyota having the cars that retrieve the hammers and the javelins and so on on field of play, or as we've already discussed, the selfies, or, any number of other partners having, Some role in the very visible part of the games, you know why they're there in the first place Yeah there's another whole world about attribution and ROI and thinking about what those involvements are Certainly having been involved with say euro sponsors in the past from China are often actually the real goal is about sale presence in supermarkets and in domestic settings in China. So it can all vary about how their what their deployment looks like in terms of ROI and where they want to deploy their associations but when it comes to yeah Once they've laddered that all up into making an offer, and often my experience of domestic partners from London was, the partnership sales team there tried to position an economic benefit specific to every partner and partner category, ended up selling everything by saying to the guys, your competitions outside the room. This is a home games. It's your only chance to be associated one in your life. Are you going to miss it? And most of them, that was the trigger that made them justify something to get it over the line. So that might be the case with LVMH, you know, big, huge French brand, can't not be involved, but then once they're there, see what they can get.

Richard Gillis: 35:10

It's interesting that, you know, cause obviously the Echos are product placement in films, isn't it? and that can go one of two ways as well. I mean, it's obviously, you know, when James Bond picks up a pint of Heineken, you sort of think, hang on, and if it doesn't work, if it's not. in the story, then we punish it almost by pulling it out. I mean, quite often, you know what it's like when you're watching a film with your kids, they are just so sensitive to product placement, you know, they're just jumping on it. And you know, if they arrive in a car and they, you know, it lingers too long on the car, or they've got a, an Apple laptop, all of these things we know are in play now. And so there is a sort of meta game, no pun intended, about, trying to work out who's paid what. cause you've got a very sophisticated audience. Now we've trained ourselves and our children to, to just be on hyper alert, to be sold at in a way that, you know, it used to be the ad break and the content, whereas now you've got this, you know, merge. And I'm wondering what the, what that means, what, how much credit I give, or if it's the same as, a brand arriving in its own environment in a classic advertising scenario. Look, it can look opportunistic. It can look like I'm breaking into a world where I'm into a world where I'm not particularly welcome.

Alex Balfour: 36:22

Certainly for sort of product like that, it's, More around point of sale opportunity and you know that that's a media aggregation that they can have a go at, you know, is all publicity in that sense, good publicity, but then it's about the association afterwards, you know, Heineken used to say, 5 percent sales uplift when they add Champions League to their product line in supermarkets and I don't have equivalent numbers. You know, we've discussed how a lot of brands can be quite coy about the uplift because they don't want to show how much more they could or should be paying for their sponsorships if it's a good one. But, you know, you'll then go into your supermarket and see Coke or Corona or whatever it is that has the rings on it and it's just that association which potentially creates brand preference. So the media exposure, whether clumsy or good, is just a bonus and it leads ultimately to the point of sale stuff, which is far more important in driving actual economic value.

Richard Gillis: 37:18

So it it's mental availability. It keeps going, you know, go, you, you go back to each time I'm just going to finish this off with favorites. What do you come away with and say, yeah, okay, I've got a warm feeling towards, whether it's a, you know, a brand activation or a moment or something that, you know, a meme, RJ, what'd you think?

RJ Kraus: 37:38

I mean, I'm really into speed climbing now. Um, That opened my eyes, for sure. I've always loved Snoop, but, this is a really cool new side. I think this could be a gig for him, in all major sporting events. That was cool to see, for sure. For me, the takeaway was that, the world of broadcast streaming and social and digital is all kind of coming together now. And, there's just a lot more touch points for content for people to engage, um, with the with the games. And I think it's a really good thing. especially as, as IOC really kind of tunes, how they're dealing with the partnerships and, and as the brands kind of learn how to. React to big moments and to create great content and to boost great content.

Alex Balfour: 38:20

I think there were lots of lovely moments and, and, some lots of really striking imagery that came out of the games, but I think it, it definitely got its mojo back. lots of emotional moments of athletes reacting and doing things. And I think what Paris did really well was, you know, not so sure about their strength of their touch on sort of the popular culture bit. They're quite good at that. High French culture stuff. the stuff that was brilliant was the settings, and the locations, and obviously the Eiffel Tower was the ultimate star all the time. and used dynamically in so many, so many ways. the Champions Park idea was brilliant. and I think that those sort of iconic images are the ones that, you know, That really resonate. and there were so many of them, whether from athlete moments or whether from just iconic setting that is will live long in the memory and play out as well on digital as any other platform.

Richard Gillis: 39:14

So Paris, Paris is the ultimate winner. Okay. Well, listen, I really, uh, really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for your time, RJ. Thanks a lot from San Diego, sunny San Diego, it looks like.

RJ Kraus: 39:25

Thank you, Rich. Thanks, Alex.

Alex Balfour: 39:27

Thank you, RJ. Thanks so much.