Olympic-Commercials

Above is one of the many Canadian spots now airing to support McDonalds 8th year as the official restaurant of the olympic games. Olympians Shawn Johnson (U.S. gold medal gymnast) and Patrick Chan (Canadian men’s figure skating champion & world silver medalist) recently helped unveil via webcast the brands’ plans for sponsoring this years 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver (along with Mary Dillon – McDonald’s Global Chief Marketing Officer and John Betts – McDonald’s Canada President). Apparently it involves not only unique branding on all McDonald’s food containers but also the construction of three new restaurants located in the Olympic Villages as well as in the Main Media Center that will be open 24 hours a day.

There will also be some new additions to the menu if you plan on visiting any of the 1,400 restaurant locations throughout Canada including S’mores Pie and a Creme Brulee Crunch McFlurry. As far as any major international campaigns are concerned, countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway will be offering special Chicken McNugget promotions under a “Share the Gold” theme. McDonald’s USA’s efforts will center around a promotion for Chicken McNuggets and a new limited time sauce.

Apparently being an official sponsor doesn’t mean you’re a shoe-in for a memorable brand footprint! Just released – 60% of respondents surveyed in China thought that Pepsi was the official drink of the Olympics. Too bad Coca-Cola shelled out all that money to secure their sponsorship!

Pepsi has taken advantage of this with its ‘Everyone can be on the can for China’ campaign , which involved a user-generated content competition. It made no mention of the Olympics, but clearly sought to ride on the attendant wave of nationalism and optimism . According to research by CMR Group conducted in 10 Chinese cities, 60% of respondents thought that Pepsi was the official drink of the Olympics, with only 40% naming the actual sponsor, Coca-Cola . The reason , CMR’s Rein suggests, is that Pepsi was seen as having better marketing campaigns. [source]

I wonder if last years Pepsi campaign where they turned the cans red had anything to do with this?

Intense:

Sharks:

Chlorine:

Credits:

Advertising Agency: Kinetic, USA

Featuring a 50 second film showing a map of London overlaid onto the image of Earth (as seen from space), Visit London is launching a £4 Million campaign to promote the 2012 Olympic Games, held in London. And their campaign slogan? See the world. Visit London.

There is also a variety of other commercials planned, including a complimentary print campaign. The campaign will launch globally at 1pm on BBC One/Radio 2 on August 24th, when the official hand-off from Beijing to London occurs.

The committee for London 2012 has already gotten off to a rocky start with the controversy surround their logo design, lets see if they can pull this off without any problems.

Visit www.london2012.com for more information about the hand-off or the next season of Olympic Games. You can check-out more information about the Visit London campaign by going to www.visitlondon.com.

Here’s a great Olympic spin-off. It’s a new campaign called Beer Relay for Tooheys Beer. They show us beer drinkers from across the globe as they participate in an international Beer Relay. The one above is my favorite, it’s titled Paco, he’s part of the European relay. The commentary by his friend is hilarious! That and when he explains:

When I return I will be a man…. I hope my mother doesn’t try to follow me.

There’s one other commercial in this series that’s been released so far, it can be found below.

Tooheys – Beer Relay – Jerry:

Credits:

Client: Tooheys
Title: Beer Relay – Jerry & Paco
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi AU
Executive Creative Director: Steve Back
Creative Director: David Bowman
Senior Copywriter: Steve Jackson
Senior Art Director: Vincent Lagnana
Agency Producer: William Doig
Production Company: @radical.media
Director: The Glue Society
Executive Producer: Rob Galluzzo
Producer: Catherine Chapple
DP: Danny Ruhlmann
Editor: Cut & Run – Adam Jenkins
Visual Effects: Fuel
Production Designer: Deborah RIley
Music: Nylon Studios

Here’s an Olympic-themed AT&T Yellow Pages commercial where the hosts use random house-hold objects instead of traditional party supplies. The Olympics are on the TV that everyone is crowded around in the background, so one can only assume it’s a party to watch the Olympic Games.

Credits:

Client: AT&T Yellow Pages
Title: Party
Agency: GSD&M Idea City
Executive Creative Director: Mark Taylor
Group Creative Directors: Steve Miller, Brent Ladd
Art Director: Bryan Pudder
Writer: Mark Ray
Executive Producer: Karen Jacobs
Prod Company: MJZ
Director: Rocky Morton
Editor: Jon Hopp