Olympic Sponsors Fail to Win the Gold

The Olympics have become my new obsession this summer and I’m not alone. People around the world have tuned in to watch these super human athletes compete for the chance of a lifetime; winning the gold. Americans sit at the edge of their seats as we all gasp, cheer, and hold our breathes hoping for the impossible. It is so difficult to watch both the heartbreak and drama that unfolds, especially realizing most of these athletes have prepared for four years, the time it takes most people our age to get a high school or college degree. 

The perseverance and drive of these individuals becomes an inspiration that Olympic sponsors have tried to capitalize on. Commercials are filled with our favorite current stars such as Michael Phelps, RyanLochte, Jordyn Weiber, and Rebecca Soni. The overwhelmingly emotional and patriotic themes help our country feel unified and we suddenly remember why we are proud to be Americans, associating these positive messages with the commercials we see.

But the important question is: can you even identify the names of these Olympic sponsors? If you can’t, don’t worry you aren’t alone. 

Team USA Olympic Sponsors

In a recent online survey, many participants incorrectly identified Pepsi, Burger King, and Nike as official Olympic sponsors. Considering that their rivals (Coca Cola, McDonalds, and Adidas) pay hundreds of millions of dollars for their sponsorship, this is a major problem. Olympic sponsors get the sole right to associate their brand with the games and use Olympic trademarks on advertisements and packaging. Furthermore the Olympic committee has restricted athletes by only allowing official sponsor endorsements for social media sites and commercials during the games. It would appear that rival companies should be the underdog in this battle for advertising gold, but so far Olympic sponsors are failing to achieve a victory.

Social Media Takes the Gold.

It's been a long wait, 4 years exactly, but the Olympics are finally here. Well, almost.

I personally do not feel like they have done enough to hype the event - I rarely heard anything about the Olympic Stadium, and I feel like more commercials should be out in support of any Olympian representing team America. But watching the Swimming Qualifiers take place signified that the games are that much closer.

Since the Summer 2008 Olympics, much has changed in the social media world. Twitter and Facebook have grown tremendously, Facebook has gone public and YouTube continues to dominate well, life.

The summer Olympics are going to have a major effect on social media this summer, and we're all going to be a little part of that.

Facebook.

In 2008, Facebook had about 100 million users worldwide, and had just surpassed MySpace as the number one social media entity. Most of us were at the end of our high school years, and some at the beginning of our College years, so AIM might have been the go-to thing. But now with over 900 million users to date, Facebook continues to grow in popularity, despite the success of Twitter. Facebook will be major for our generation because it is a way to keep updated with who exactly captured the gold medal or whether Ryan Lochte beat Michael Phelps in the 200 meter freestyle. For many people, Facebook is the News.

Twitter.

In 2008, Twitter had a wee 6 million users. Now? Just multiply that by like 80ish... they now have over 500 million users who send about 400 million tweets a day. It's not hard to imagine the stuff that will be said during the games. One person will probably tweet one thing 10 times, but in different ways. Twitter is that source we go to to vent, regardless of how pointless what we have to say is, it's our freedom source. But not only for our sanity, there are so many sources of News be it ABC, ESPN, sports analysts - we will always have our share of information regarding the games.

YouTube.

Has always been big. Let's face it, it's one of a kind. No matter how much any website tries to duplicate or mimic YouTube, YouTube will always finish in number one. The stats have steadily gone up with YouTube, and obviously every event will be posted on here. Official Videos, or video's taken by someone's cell phone recording the television, we will be able to find pretty much every event on YouTube. There honestly isn't much to say about YouTube. It's YouTube.

For those of us who are busy this summer working, chillin', sleeping, eating, whatever, and do not have the chance to watch the games when they air, Social Media is our resource.

It's crazy to think how much it's changed in the past 4 years, and how important it's become in each of our lives, directly or indirectly.

I actually just found out when the games air today, but for those of you who still do not know, the Olympics air Friday, July 27, 2012, and end Sunday, August 12, 2012.

And here's the schedule for the games.

Happy Monday :)

Who is #UncleDrew? Only the Face of a Perfect Social Media Campaign

If you were like millions of Americans on Tuesday night, you watched a great battle between the young and energetic Oklahoma City Thunder and the arch-villain Miami Heat. (hey, that isn't an opinion...the Heat introductions featured Star Wars' 'Imperial March') It also featured exactly what it takes to make a great social media campaign.

If you were paying attention during the commercials, then you noticed Pepsi's "Uncle Drew" campaign. The commercial featured Cleveland Cavalier's young star Kyrie Irving dressing up in professional makeup and quite the impressive grey beard. Essentially, Irivng hustles a bunch of locals at a game of streetball. After initially acting as a feeble old man, he soon starts skying for alley oops and crossing up the other team.

A cool experiment by Pepsi no doubt, but an even more impressive example of the power of social media. While there is no doubt that every company has entered onto Facebook and Twitter, the jury is still somewhat out on how to use these tools effectively. Brilliant examples of social media are well documented (as are the horror stories), but I feel that this #UncleDrew campaign by Pepsi exemplifies exactly what to do. While there is no ultimate formula as to what will work and what will not, there are a few common themes to successful Twitter campaigns/hashtags:

1. Create curiosity and enable the user to take action: This is by far the most important factor...make users seek out an answer to a question that they are genuinely interested in. In this case, it was who dressed up as Uncle Drew.
2. Link the brand to the hashtag while attempting to not sound overly 'corporate': Pepsi was flashed throughout the commercial, but they did not shove it in your face, nor did they create a hashtag like #PepsiCreatesUncleDrew.
3. Don't allow a hashtag to take a negative spin: This is a tricky one and requires a little bit of judgment and experience. Try to think of it this way; put yourself in the shoes of a 'hater' as the kids say these days. How can your campaign be negatively spun. If you cannot think of any logical ways, then you are probably clear.

What other factors do you think influence a hashtag campaign or social media trend?