• by August 30, 2004

A MEDIA DEAL WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD -- Try to calculate the CPM on this one. The cost of the media "buy" was about $10 billion. The buy delivered the equivalent of 145,200 30-second spots running across seven U.S. broadcast and cable networks, and was projected to average about a 15.8 rating in primetime.

Not enough audience delivery information to calculate the actual CPM, you say? Well then, just consider the average 30-second unit cost was only $68,870, making Greece's Olympic buy a pretty good ad deal, especially when you consider that the global audience reach was many times that of NBC's U.S. coverage.

It's an even better deal when you consider the fact that much of that $10 billion - the equivalent of a U.S. network upfront primetime marketplace - went into beefing up the infrastructure of Athens and surrounding cities, which undoubtedly will reap a boon in tourism from what was the most expensive, longest-running, and likely hugely effective tourism spot ever run. What's that? You say the Athens Games weren't a commercial --they were a live sporting event. Well then, we guess you didn't see the press release issued this morning by Jack Morton Worldwide, the event production company that produced the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. The headline: "World's Biggest Celebration Closes Greek Games: Jack Morton Stages the World's Most Spectacular City Advertisement."

Or you didn't hear the quip by NBC Sports commentator Bob Costas, who after narrating a several minutes long travelogue on the Greek island of Lesbos, said he was expecting a check in the mail soon from Greek tourism authorities. Now that's branded content.

Yes, the Athens Games were about sports. And there were some amazing sports moments - both thrillingly victorious and agonizingly defeating - but the real winners were the commercial interests - the Olympic committees and their sponsors, the TV rights holders and their advertisers, and especially the host nation, which pulled off a gold medal event despite the skepticism leading up to the Games, and the cynicism surrounding them. NBC reaped more than $1 billion in advertising sales, enough to net a profit on its $793 million rights fee, after factoring in the cost of production, marketing, and hospitality associated with the event. More importantly, it got something that money cannot buy in the network TV business these days: momentum going into a new fall season. And if the incessant promo spots for "Joey" didn't utterly turn you off (as it did us), then chances are, that and other NBC shows will be opening big time in a few weeks, extending NBC's Olympic victory into the fall.

Advertisers won, even the ones who stupidly, repetitiously showed the same "we-got-it-the-first-time" commercials over and over and over again. On that particular note, all we can say is, "Dude, you're going to hurt yourself." Or better yet, "Practice" may make perfect if you happen to be an Olympic swimmer, but it begins to wear thin if you're an Olympic advertiser.

The truth is that the best commercial of the Athens Games wasn't one that was shown in 30-second blips, but as part of an unraveling story about a place, its people and historical connection to the Olympic Games, the gloriously beautiful landscape, and romantic imagery.

What's the real CPM on Athens Games? Well, to quote one non-Olympic sponsor whom we will not name for fear of being called ambushers, it was "priceless."