Guerillas at the sports marketing gates

On October 1 The Vancouver Sun reported that VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games) will spend $40 million “buying up every major supply of major advertising space throughout” greater Vancouver, reflecting VANOC’s commitment to the IOC to “sew up all advertising locations for Games sponsors and prevent so-called “ambush marketing” by non-sponsors” during the 2010 Games.

Makes sense. Those official sponsors spent enormous amounts of money to be able to merchandise the Games to their full extent. Over the years, the stories of non-Officials, especially Nike, maneuvering to appear connected to the Olympics, are many and memorable, and it’s not unreasonable for the Officials to get massively pissed off.

But I say, hail the Guerillas.

In sports or in marketing, being on top of your game takes clever thinking and originality, and more than anything else, adaptability. If you can’t run the ball, go to the play action. If you can’t win with homers, go small ball. And if you lose the bidding war (or choose not to bid) to be an Olympic sponsor, find another way in.
Nike famously did just that in Atlanta in 1996, buying up spots on Olympic themed programming, as well blanketing outdoor advertising all over the city. Reebok paid the big bucks, but Nike got the credit. And plenty of press, to boot.

The other very memorable example of Olympic sponsorship and corporate skullduggery took place in 1992, when members of the Dream Team, including Michael Jordan, used American flags to cover up the Reebok logos on their warm-ups. There’s a lot to the story, of course, from millions of dollars in retail purchases at stake, to the fact that consent forms weren’t presented to the players until they were on the plane bound for the Games.

Did MJ and his Nike brothers use the stars and bars as pashminas because they felt loyal to their corporate parent, or because they were trying to protect their own financial interests? Probably some of both. They’re smart guys and very good businessmen, especially MJ.

There’s no easy answer. But these days, when money’s tight all over, if there’s a way to be smarter than the next guy, spend less money, and get more credit and exposure, I say, Go for it. Go guerilla.