TV advertising delivered for Olympic sponsors

New research around the Olympics and Paralympics shows that the largest platform for delivering consumer awareness about sponsors was via TV advertising.

Mindi Chahal

The research, carried out by YouGov for Initials Marketing, showed that for the two brands that were most associated with the games, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, ads on live TV were the most popular means by which consumers came across those brands. The numbers show 59 per cent and 55 per cent of the 2,000 consumers surveyed saw the brands on TV respectively.

This is not surprising as the research also revealed that 97 per cent of the poll watched live events on a TV.

As with the Olympics, the most remembered route for brand association for the brands most associated with the Paralympics was advertising on TV. For Sainsbury’s 81 per cent saw their advertising on TV, just over half for Coca-Cola and 55 per cent for McDonalds. Of those watching live Paralympic events, 94 per cent of people watched on a TV.

It is interesting that the likelihood to buy from brands sponsoring the Paralympic’s was higher than the Olympics. This paid off for Sainsbury’s sponsorship of the Paralympics, as according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel supermarket figures sales increased by 5.6 per cent year on year in the 12 weeks to September, lifting its market share by 0.3 percentage points to 16.5 per cent.

Excitement and recognition around TV advertising is also especially prevalent around Christmas, with the true sign of the holiday season for many being the Coca Cola truck appearing on our screen along with the iconic theme tune. The offering from major retailers has also created anticipation, after John Lewis achieved success with their emotive ad in 2011.

Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Littlewood’s and The Co-operative Group have all released their Christmas ad campaigns in the past week.

The first in Tesco’s series of ads about tackling different aspects of Christmas does stand out, mainly because there is a Furby singing Lionel Ritchie’s Hello but also because of the voucher exchange scheme where customers redeem loyalty vouchers for double the value.

Asda seems to have sparked a sexism debate with is depiction of mums doing absolutely everything when it comes to Christmas. The Advertising Standards Association has already received 24 complaints.

Comments on the Marketing Week website sum it up, from anonymous: “What a daft advert – message seems to be that drudge mums are heroes whose only value is as servants to everyone else in the household.” And also from anonymous: “Don’t normally have a problem with ads but this definitely reinforces gender stereotypes. This advert would have been better placed in the 50’s.”

Perhaps it is the emotive quality of TV advertising that gets the nation talking and buying into messaging. We saw this around the Olympics, as brand sponsors called for consumers to get behind and rally for the games and we will see emotional engagement again during the festive season.
I was one of those people ‘moved’ by the 2011 John Lewis TV advert, The long wait, and I’m looking forward to seeing the 2012 campaign.

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