Olympic sponsors have for the most part had an easy ride of it as the countdown to London 2012 draws ever closer.
Dow’s sponsorship has rufflled feathers but big ticket brands such as McDonald’s- which will be peddling its burgers from the world’s biggest McDonald’s in the Olympic village- have had a fairly easy ride of it.
But Marketing’s revelation that P&G is to base its “mums” Olympic campaign at Vinopolis which coincides with mass reduncancies at London attraction could spell trouble for the Gillette maker.
Olympic sponsors want to be seen as forces for good, ploughing millions of pounds into the games while lending their brand names to the pinnacle of athletic achievement.
P&G’s “mums” schmaltzy campaign, launched on Mothering Sunday, in many represents the perfect Olympic campaign- shipping a load of star atheletes’ mums to the UK to watch their offspring achieve their Olympic dreams.
The P&G website reads “For 80 years in the UK and more than 170 years around the world, Mums have been our bosses at P&G.”
But surely P&G could have found a more energy efficent way of celebrating mums than jetting in over 100 mums dotted around the world to London for just a few days while it would also have earnt more brownie points by funding a UK-specific project to help mums, such as war widows or something that is in the public’s forefront of mind.
Too many Olympic sponsors are tunnel-visioned on the global picture at the expense of the UK despite overwhelming evidence that UK-concentric campaigns are more likely to raise their brand cache.
Some, like Cadbury and Lloyds, are the obvious exceptions to this. But too many sponsors are showcasing easy-to-forget, disposable campaigns which could be airing in any country in the world.
P&G introduces a lot of worthy and commendable initiatives but I think its “mums” initiative misses the mark.