• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, August 6, 2008

While it's too soon to say what kind of buzz the 2008 Beijing Olympics--opening Friday night--will generate, early measurements of Olympic sponsors in social media show decidedly mixed results. 

So far, Visa is dominating the share of voice derby, with 36%, followed by Coca-Cola (18%) and McDonald's (16%), according to a report from Collective Intellect, a Boulder, Colo.-based company that tracks conversations in the blogosphere and on social-media sites. But Visa is also generating more negative posts than any other sponsors, says Justin Wyman, CI's operations manager: The majority of comments--51%--are negative, a trend that seems to be increasing.

The negatives arenot specifically about the campaign, he explains, but connect a sponsor's name to any generally negative post related to the Olympics--whether it has to do with China's pollution problem or any number of Olympic-related controversies. Conversations surrounding the United Parcel Service have also become increasingly negative, as have conversations about the Olympics in general.

But other sponsors are generating comments that are quite positive. "McDonald's innovative Olympic advertising isn't limited to TV, but includes blogs and games, and not only has it generated a high share of voice, the sentiment is extremely positive," he says.

And Panasonic, while it has a low share of voice, is the only one of seven sponsors that has not had a single negative attached to it. "Panasonic's message is really resonating with its target audience," he says.

The report provides a baseline of seven key advertisers-- Kodak, McDonald's, Panasonic, UPS, Coca-Cola, GE and Visa--and Wyman says Collective Intellect will continue tracking them through September, to get a complete sense of what kind of sentiment companies earn via their sponsorship.