Commentary

5 Mobile Marketing Best Practices For The Olympics

With (just) under 100 days until the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio on August 5, marketers are putting the finishing touches on their Olympic marketing activities. Even marketers that aren't buying TV commercials during the games are creating Olympic-related marketing.

How can mobile marketers take full advantage of the Olympics? Here's a list of mobile marketing best practices:

Start early: Though the Olympics only last 16 days, the values of excellence and participation are eternal. If you're spending much of your time and budget on the Olympics, start early in order to generate an ROI. Further, with so many marketers running Olympics-relating marketing and promotional campaigns, the earlier one starts, the more likely they are to stand out.

Make it relatable to your customers: Though most of us will never win an Olympic medal, we can all relate to the values of the Olympics –the pursuit of excellence, team work, participation, dedication and respecting our peers. Effective and successful Olympic marketing efforts succeed in presenting these Olympic values in a way that is relatable to all.

A campaign that did an exceptional job of being relatable is Nike's "Find Your Greatness" campaign from the 2012 London Olympics. With an overweight boy jogging, the announcer says: "Greatness is not some rare DNA strand. It's not some precious thing. Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing. We're all capable of it – all of us." 

Make it personal: Along with making Olympic marketing relatable to all customers, try and make it personal to each individual. When engaging with a company's Olympic marketing, strive to connect with our users on a unique and personal level.

An Olympic campaign which made a strong personal connection (yet was also very relatable) is Procter and Gamble's "Proud Sponsors of Mom's" commercial. Showing athletes first as babies and then through the trials of overcoming adversity and learning their sport, the commercial ends with the following text: "For teaching us that falling only makes us stronger – thank you, Mom." (

By tying into user data, whether it's mobile phone-based loyalty data, app-based data or other mobile data like location, time, phone make and model, etc., mobile marketers can provide their users with the most personal experience.

Use all channels to support your mobile marketing efforts: The best way to run an effective Olympic marketing campaign is to make sure all channels are in sync to support each other. Make sure that your other marketing channels are supporting your Olympic efforts.

And don't forget about channels that might not be within marketing's purview. Customer service operators should be aware of your marketing campaigns and take advantage of all opportunities, including customer billing and invoicing.

Don't make it about winning: With so many great values associated with the Olympics, don't make your marketing campaign centered on celebrating an athlete's victory. All Olympic athletes are winners of regional or national competitions, though only one can win the gold medal at the Olympics.

As for users, with the world one big melting pot, there is a good chance that many of your local users are originally from one of the 'losing' countries.

Though some marketers have succeeded with a winning message – like Wheaties putting athletes on their box – so much can go wrong.

Reebok's famous Dan & Dave Olympic ad campaign in 1992 pitted these two Decathlon Gold medal favorites in an extended marketing campaign. But then, Dan O'Brien failed to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team (though he did win the Gold four years later) and Dave Johnson had a foot injury, earning a Bronze.

The Olympics are an exciting marketing platform for brand marketers because they offer so many values and stories around which to tie our mobile marketing efforts in ways which are both relatable and personal.

Let the (mobile marketing) games begin!
Next story loading loading..