Instead of sponsoring the games or entire teams, Holt said brands should consider partnering with individual athletes. While those opportunities might be limited during the event, online conversations about the Olympics -- and, to an even greater extent, their participants -- occur long before and after the broadcast.
“Athletes are media entities and brands themselves,” Holt said. “The Olympics only last for two weeks, but these athletes have voices and platforms year-round.”
Newer brands are gravitating away from the Olympics, and with good reason, Cieslak said. Take first-time sponsor Airbnb Inc., for instance, which got “completely whipsawed” this year, he said, due to travel restrictions: Less than 1 percent of U.S. adults thought of the home-sharing platform in conjunction with the international sporting event, despite its position as a worldwide Olympic partner thanks to a nine-year deal it signed with the International Olympic Committee in 2019.
Cieslak said up-and-coming brands, including some of the world’s most highly regarded young companies, might not just be uninterested in the Olympics. They could be put off by them.
The IOC and the Games are generally “tainted” for some younger viewers especially, he said, given factors such as Japanese citizens’ opposition to the event amid the ongoing pandemic and the backlash over the suspension of Sha'Carri Richardson for a positive marijuana test.
“The Olympics have lost their luster as this great, global, unifying force,” Cieslak said. “A lot of younger, less mature brands have grown up in this era where they don’t see it as having the same value. If the Olympics are going to get relevant again, there’s going to have to be a real shake-up in how the IOC sees them.”
Holt, however, cautioned that marketers shouldn’t write the Olympics off just yet. While NBC has reportedly had to renegotiate with sponsors who expected a larger audience, it remains too early to evaluate the long-term impacts of this year’s unusual event.
“There’s still something about the Olympic spectacle, a long-term gravitas that comes with it,” Holt said. “But the Olympics are going to have to work very hard to see things come back on the upward curve.”
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