London 2012 banner at The Monument. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NBC has been coming under fire for not only failing to broadcast the 2012 London Olympic events live, but also for broadcasting poorly. #NBCfail is making its own news, and there’s a backlash in the honesty of the network. Admitting you’re trying to make money off the event is fine. Limiting your own ways to make money…not so fine. As a business person, I worry.
If I were a sponsor, I’d be even more worried.
P&G, one of the major sponsors for the Olympics, has major cause to want the Games to gain high ratings. Through wonderful ads showing the context of what athletes and their families work towards, we have an opportunity to see more than just a final score or medal count. You may not rush to buy a P&G product, but their brands gain a little more credit in the “warm and fuzzy” part of your mind. If you match P&G with #NBCfail, does that still hold true?
As a major sponsor in a global event, should logistics issues get in the way of your brand?
The whole experience someone has with a product affects whether or not we have positive associations with that brand. If Amazon wants to make sure you get that Prime benefit of two-day shipping, then UPS or other carriers need to literally deliver. If UPS doesn’t drop off the package, doesn’t scan the tracking code, or even loses the package, Amazon is still associated with the consumer’s negative experience, even if there was a middleman at fault.
We can’t create boundaries between brands in our heads. Instead, we usually build associations.
P&G has been working hard to build a groundwork of positive brand associations. P&G noted in the Business Recorder that the Olympics offer an opportunity to reach more women than it would through other sporting events. In an interview with e-Marketer, P&G’s Global Marketing and Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard notes, “We’ve gone on record saying that we want to try to achieve $500 million in extra sales from this campaign from April through August.” There’s a lot of long-term effort being put in place, but two weeks of NBC coverage could muddle brand impact, or even have negative consequences.
In theory, since women are a major market for P&G, with moms being targeted already through the “Thank You Mom” campaign, they’d want to ensure women could view the events. There is a very real consumer group of 5 million stay-at-home moms in the U.S, as measured by the U.S. Census for 2011. Are they getting Olympic coverage, regardless of cable status? If she is, does the quality (commenting and broadcasting) mean she’s thinking positive or negative thoughts about the sponsor brands?
Based on contractual negotiations, P&G or the other major Olympic sponsors may not have a leg to stand on as far as enforcing coverage quality. These are massive organizations, so unified complaints from “whiners” may not move the NBC coverage needle. Would unified sponsors make a difference?
As a marketer, I worry that the model for sponsorship and advertising means we’re being anti-marketers. We’re forgetting what our consumers want. A powerhouse like P&G could say, “Yes, good marketing puts me in line with a global event.” A great marketer would have said to NBC, “Let’s use our sponsorship to provide uninterrupted coverage of the Opening Ceremonies, people will appreciate that.” Great marketers would think of options and how to drive people towards them…not only creating one option that drives people away.
I was not there to work out these contracts, and hindsight is 20/20, but this whole debacle begs the question: who really wins when quality isn’t delivered? It’s not just the viewers here.
What do you think? Do sponsors have the ability to influence quality? Should they have that power of influence? Should something like the Olympics be a global free event for viewing, regardless of broadcast rights or sponsorship?
