Commentary

Does Olympic Athletic Performance Translate Into Gold Medal Brand Performance?

The Olympics is known for best-in-class athletic performance, but to help convince brand marketers in preparation for its upfront advertising sales, NBCUniversal has teamed with WPP’s BAV Group (Brand Asset Valuator) research unit to make sure brand marketers know it will perform well for them too.

The research is part of a 20-year longitudinal tracking study by BAV of the Olympics as a brand, as well as its rub on brands sponsoring it.

NBCU said the new research found: “The Olympics has consistently been one of the strongest, most well-respected and known brands in culture, outpacing competitive sports and entertainment properties. For decades, the Olympics has embodied powerful brand attributes such as ‘authentic,’ ‘daring,’ ‘distinct,’ ‘fun,’ ‘high-performing,’ ‘prestigious’ and ‘social’ – culminating in its position of ‘leadership’ vs. peer institutions.”

I don’t know how much NBCU paid WPP for those insights, but I could have saved them some marketing research budget if they had only asked me.

In fact, during a press briefing this afternoon reviewing the findings, I asked Dan Lovinger, President, Olympics & LA2028 Ad and Sponsorship Sales, whether he was in any way surprised by the Olympics performance in the latest BAV research.

“Am I surprised? no,” he confirmed, adding that the research is just another opportunity to tout the unparalleled strength of the Olympics as a sporting-event brand.

With regard to the study’s other important findings -- that brands that sponsor the Olympics also outpace their category competitors in BAV’s metrics -- I also asked whether they had any indication whether it was “causality” or the fact that those Olympic sponsors tend to already be leaders in their categories.

“Does the Olympics cause it? Certainly there is correlation here,” NBCU Vice President, Insights, Sports & Olympics Matthew Gottlieb asserted.

In other words, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of new insight in NBCU’s and BAV’s new Olympics research, other than the fact that the network is using it to jumpstart its sales process for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, which are still 16 months away.

As for whether NBCU’s Olympic sales team will set a new personal best, we’ll have to wait until the closing ceremonies to find out for sure.

In the meantime, here are the findings NBCU and BAV Group released today:
  • The Olympics has consistently been one of the strongest, most well-respected and known brands in culture, outpacing competitive sports and entertainment properties
  •  For decades, the Olympics has embodied powerful brand attributes such as “authentic,” “daring,” “distinct,” “fun,” “high-performing,” “prestigious” and “social” – culminating in its position of “leadership” vs. peer institutions.
  • The Olympic brand becomes a magnate for sponsors, drawing them toward the upper echelon of BAV Group’s “Power Grid” of brands:
    • The Olympics creates a strong halo for official partners, who see a +117% increase in association with these Olympic traits among Olympics fans  
    •  In turn, sponsors outpace non-Olympic partners within their respective categories by double-digits. Average net performance among Olympic fans for sponsors vs. their respective category on BAV Group’s pillar metrics: 
      • +49% higher Esteem and loyalty 
      • +54% greater Differentiation, tied to excitement about a brand  
      • +39% more Relevance, a metric tied to market share
      •  Post-sponsorship, brands across categories were, on average, able to earn substantial equity including consideration (+6%), preference (+7%), pricing power (+40%) and loyalty (+40%)  
  • Ultimately, brands that perform strongly in BAV Group outpace the market in terms of financial performance: +127% vs. the S&P 500 over the last 15 years.  
     
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About the Author

Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.