OLYMPICS, SPONSORS, AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
Admittedly, I haven’t watched much of the Olympics, but I have read a number of articles that I found interesting regarding unofficial sponsors of the Olympics. Athletes and sponsorships are big business, and it is often entrepreneurial brands that (attempt to) find less expensive ways to capture the public’s attention at high-profile events.
These two were some of the more unique instances:
* In an official team photo of the U.S. men’s basketball team, member Dwight Howard’s footwear was obscured, as he won’t wear Nikes. I think the picture that Nike released allowed Howard’s foot to be invisible in what was probably the easiest way possible.
* Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser of sunglass company Oakley attracted a ton of attention.
At the end of the day, sponsors pay athletes a lot of money and have to insist on pushing their athletes to do all they can do to protect the brands’ investments.
Ronn Torossian
5WPR
August 29th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I conducted an informal video survey regarding the calls to boycott the Olympics and the sponsors and posted it to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ9__2l5c7k
The results, in a nutshell, confirmed and article I wrote saying that the Olympic boycotts were essentially dead once President Bush decided to go to the opening ceremony. See: http://www.boycottwatch.org/misc/olympics-07.htm
July 26th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
nice photo. Thanks for posting.