This year’s Olympics in London will be remembered for a lot many things and was special in numerous ways. While Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt went down in the history of the Games as legends, closer to home, this edition became our most successful performance in the Olympics as far as the overall medal standings are concerned. The national team won a total of six medals, 2 silver and 4 bronze. When London played host to the Summer Olympics the entire world’s eyes were on it and it needed to make a favorable impression. Let's see how a couple of sponsors did the same.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) one of the primary sponsors of the Games decided to go beyond being passive sponsors and make a difference in the lives of the people. P&G came up with a campaign, P&G Capital Clean Up to help clean the nation’s capital before The London 2012 Olympic Games. The event witnessed a lot of celebrities volunteering for keeping up the pride of London. An art exhibition entitled ‘Helping London Look Its Best,’ was hosted based on the ‘Capital Clean Up’ programme. It featured illustrations from London artists around the theme of cleaning the capital for the Games. Each artist was given a dirty wall tile from the London Underground to create an image with, by cleaning the tile with a cloth or their fingers and was then filmed to create a video to show the making of the artwork.
In India, the FMCG giant introduced its global campaign, ‘Thank you mom’ where videos of India’s competing athletes being prepared by their mothers were made. P&G sponsored athletes like boxer Mary Kom and runner Kavita Raut and gave their mothers a chance to see them perform at London later this year. The company created a platform for children to thank the silent heroes of their lives- their mothers.
What P&G did was not retrofitting games to people’s lives but making people relevant to the Olympics. You need to bring something from people to connect to the games and not the other way round. A valuable lesson that all IPL sponsors should learn is to leverage sponsorships and make their event relatable to the consumers.
Mc Donald’s an official sponsor of the London Olympics 2012 came up with an advertising campaign called “We All Make the Games.” The campaign planned to capture and celebrate the various emotions, experiences and moments of the people during the games. It went on to become the nation's mood meter while the Games were on.
These campaigns were highly successful as they went beyond being ‘just campaigns’ and became Humankind stories that were emotionally powerful to people. Compare this to our failure to do the same at 2010 Commonwealth Games and you would realize the folly. The Games is about sportspersons but it is the ‘people’ that make it what it is. McDonald's, a people’s restaurant talked to the people including its employees and consumers. People make the Games. Moms make the champions. Let us not forget to celebrate these indispensable cogs when we celebrate the Games.
The author is National Creative Director, Leo Burnett
