GOING FOR GOLD in sydney: Olympic Ad Buys

by Jun 21, 2002, 12:00 AM

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There’s a lot at stake in Sydney this year, and not just for the athletes. For the first time in Olympic history, online advertising is being sold for the Summer 2000 Games, and lots of sites are selling it. There’s www.olympics.com (but not www.olympic.com; that’s for “Olympic waterproofing sealant,” which could end up having a banner year). There is also www.nbcolympics.com, which is the official and thus only site online where you can find video clips from this year’s Olympiad. Likewise, NBC Network owns all the broadcast rights to the games for the next five years. On the following pages, you’ll find out just what it takes to buy a piece of Sydney 2000, online and off. To those going for the gold, good luck! Unofficial buys Unofficial doesn’t imply pirating or guerrilla marketing, just that these sites will be covering the Olympics as part of their regular editorial content. ESPN is selling packages within ESPN.com’s Olympics section. They’ll have both banner ads and sponsorships. This is consiste57è¤ith their strategy to provide customized platforms for marketers looking to reach a very targeted, valuable demo (just like ESPN). They do the same for Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, etc. They stress that deals like this, around an event, tend to come together at the last minute, so they don’t have any specifics on pricing or buys. Official buys To purchase advertising on www.olympics.com, contact Phase2Media, which represents the site in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. (For full contact information, see below.) BMCMedia.com, in Sydney, represents the site in Australia and the Asia/Pacific region.

Who can make a buy on the official site? Web-based companies and brick and mortars alike are being offered the opportunity to participate on the site.

What are the different kinds of ad buys available on olympics.com? Advertising/sponsorships packages include banner presence, sponsorship/affiliation with site content. There are also e-commerce opportunities and research support.

How are the advertisers measuring the ROI and effectiveness of the olympics.com online buys? Phase2Media has entered into a strategic partnership with Millward Brown Interactive to offer brand impact studies to advertisers and prove that online branding works; a state of the art online advertising system will measure brand and ad awareness; creative and copy messaging; increase in brand perception and purchase consideration.

Is there still space available? What kinds of buys are Phase2 recommending to advertisers? Yes, there is still space available. As they get closer to the opening, Phase2 anticipates that many additional advertisers will finalize their commitments because of their desire to target the increased traffic that will occur. As mentioned before, the focus is advertising sponsorships.

Do the prices go up closer to the event? No. Phase2 is maintaining their pricing as they continue to sell integrated (e.g., “Brought to you by”) sponsorships on olympics.com.

Does Phase2 have a department handling buyers and planners from primary advertisers on the Sydney site? Yes, the company has an entire sales staff dedicated to this event. Overseeing the Olympic sales is John Trimble, vice president of advertising sales, men’s sports. Trimble is the former senior director of corporate sponsorships for the National Football League Properties, Inc. He can be reached at 212-883-4793 or jtrimble@phase2media.com.

When did most advertisers sign up? Was it mostly recent past, in a hurry, or last year, progressively? Progressively, and Phase2 is seeing a heightened interest in the site as Games time approaches. Broadcast Number of hours of Sydney Games on-air programming: 441.5

Number of events that will be seen live in primetime: 0 Because Sydney is 12 hours ahead, all events shown in primetime in the U.S. will be on tape. This means that while you may learn the results from other media, you won’t see an event until the next day—unless you go online to nbcolympics.com. Thus, many more people will likely be getting their Olympics fix from the Internet than ever before. Sites Official www.olympics.com www.nbcolympics.com www.usoc.org

Main Unofficial (can do reporting but no video) www.cnnsi.com www.sportsline.com www.espn.com www.smh.com.au/olympics

Broadcast rights site www.nbcolympics.com

How much NBC paid to be the exclusive broadcaster on air and of all video online (in the US) for the next five Olympic Games: $3.5 billion Number of hours of embargo on video footage of live events: 15

Expected page views on IBM-developed olympics.com site for life of site (thru Dec. 31, 2000): 1.4 billion

Number of Other Unofficial Sites being sued for using the copyrighted names “olympic” or “olympiad” in their domain names:

Major Online Sponsors IBM – The Official Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Web site is a collaboration between the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and IBM, Worldwide Information Technology Partner and the Official Provider of Internet Technologies for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Visa – includes Visa banner ads on the site as well as Visa-sponsored content

Lifeminders.com – provider of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Electronic Daily Newsletter

Looksmart – the Official Search Engine and Directory Provider

Mizuno – sponsor of the baseball section of the site

Cadbury – banner advertisements

Boral – sponsor of the area on the site where users/individuals can sponsor online commemorative bricks

Clipclop.com – sponsor of the equestrian section of the site

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