Olympic sponsors launch countdown to 2012
The countdown to the London 2012 Olympic games began in earnest this week as sponsors launched a series of ads to celebrate the handover. A number of full page ads from many of the tier one partners appeared in national newspapers across the weekend.
Adidas, which sponsored the Beijing Games and is a tier one partner of London 2012, is running several executions featuring medal-winning athletes from Beijing. The ads all use the Adidas strapline Impossible is Nothing and celebrate British success in Beijing and predict further triumph in four years time at London 2012. One ad, showing the gold medal winning men’s cycling pursuit team, says; “Awesome away… Imagine them at home”.
Lloyds TSB, also a London 2012 tier one partner, is running a series of ads looking forward to the event alongside smaller ads featuring future Olympic hopefuls. Visa, a worldwide Olympic partner, is also using press ads to declare that “The Journey to London 2012 Starts Now”, while Panasonic, another worldwide Olympic partner, is running a more conventional product-led ad.
The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Locog) ran a series of ads over the weekend congratulating Team GB’s successful athletes and British Airways, a tier one London 2012 partner, is running a tongue-in-cheek ad saying it is happy to allow Team GB a greater hand luggage allowance for its return journey to the UK.
Nike, neither a worldwide sponsor nor partner of London 2012, is also running full-page ads, intended to be inspire future athletes with the strapline: “It wasn’t me who won gold – but it will be”.
