Reebok Cancels Beijing Hospitality
Reebok works on a new plan to capitalize on its partnership with basketball star Yao Ming during the Olympics, while it cancels plans for a Games-time media and athlete center in Beijing. Reebok's "Fuel Yao's Unlimited Power" campaign, launched in 2007, is its biggest China marketing effort. (Getty Image)
"Yao Ming is probably our one true global asset," Reebok director of global public relations Josie Stevens tells Around the Rings.
But a planned public event in Beijing now has only a slim chance of coming off because Reebok does not know exactly when he will be available around the Games.
"It is my understanding is because there's a point at which athletes become members of Team China or Team America or Team GB, and we just don't know when that point is," says Stevens.
Terms vary among teams and athletes, but many are not available to work for their sponsors until they are eliminated from play.
And Reebok has no obvious place to put the basketball star, after cancelling plans for a media and athlete hospitality center outside of the Olympic Green.
Logistics are the reason for the cancellation, Stevens says, declining to elaborate.
"We are now working on considering what our plan Bs are," she says.
Plan B for media services is likely to be prepackaged athlete interviews for distribution to media outlets.
Prepackaged interviews eliminate the chance that reporters will ask athletes potentially sensitive political questions while inside a Reebok facility.
"As a brand, we didn't want to put our athletes in the position when being interviewed of having to explain their personal views on the human rights issue and we also didn't want to act as a censor either," says Stevens.
Though Reebok is part of the Adidas Group, that connection does not entitle Reebok to the Adidas hospitality space on the Olympic Green or any other official areas. Adidas is a sponsor of BOCOG.
TYR Sport Brings Speedo to Court
Swimsuit maker Speedo and USA Swimming are conspiring to stifle competition, rival manufacturer TYR Sport claims. Swimmers wearing Speedo's new LZR suit have broken 37 world records since it was introduced in February 2008. (Getty Images)
TYR has filed a case in U.S. federal court that alleges USA Swimming coach Mark Schubert touts the Speedo suit too warmly. LZR also argues that Speedo has too much influence in the national governing body.
"There's a big issue with a lot of the comments out there coming through USA Swimming and Mark Schubert about the relative merits of the LZR suit," says TYR attorney Larry Hilton, referring to Speedo's LZR suit.
Along with USA Swimming and Schubert, swimmer Erik Vendt is named as a codefendant, for switching to a Speedo sponsorship and dumping TYR. TYR says Vendt broke a binding contract.
Speedo called the lawsuit groundless in a written statement to media.
Sponsor Briefs…
TOP sponsor GE plans to offload its home appliance division because it is too focused on the U.S., according to a company statement. The plan is part of a larger strategy to sell off slow-growth businesses. GE is not the home appliance sponsor of the 2008 Games; that portfolio belongs to China's Haier. The Lenovo U series is lightweight, comes in Olympic red and retails for $1899. (Lenovo)
Lenovo will soon begin a TV ad campaign in the U.S. designed to draw consumers to the premium end of the brand. The China-based TOP sponsor acquired IBM's PC division in 2005, but the Lenovo name is a later introduction to the U.S. market and still little-known. The TV advertising, which will debut closer to the Games, will highlight high-end Lenovo IdeaPad laptops.
Alltel Wireless, a company based in Arkansas, U.S., signs a sponsorship deal with sprinter Tyson Gay through 2008. Gay, the 2007 IAAF male athlete of the year, went to college in Fayeteville, Arkansas. The agreement includes exclusive mobile content featuring Gay for Alltel subscribers.
Media Watch…
A communications guru makes a rallying call to Games sponsors: Save the Olympics. Michael Maslansky, president of Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research, tells Around the Rings that sponsors can pursue a strategy that will remove the Games from the criticisms of anti-China activists and beef up the bottom line.
Maslansky recommends that companies first focus on a message of friendly sporting competition and Olympic values.
Every time a sponsor says "Tibet" or "Darfur", the headline becomes Darfur, Olympics, Beijing, Maslansky tells Around the Rings.
The sponsors must reframe the dialog in terms of China and Olympic values, leaving out specifics like Darfur and Tibet, he recommends.
Right now, he says, activists are winning a PR battle against some of the largest, richest companies in the world.
And sponsors must also drop their claims of being apolitical.
"Companies cannot say they're not a political organization and get away with it," Maslansky says.
Companies should acknowledge criticism of Beijing but also argue that the Games Olympic spotlight has helped open up the country. He includes a full sample statement in a column in Ad Age.
The right strategy is imperative to the bottom line, Maslansky adds.
Some 25 percent of U.S. consumers say they will consider eschewing Olympic sponsors, according to new research by his firm.
Major Games sponsors curbed spending on TV, newspaper and magazine ads in China in Q1, according to research by Nielsen Media. The reasons include budget constraints and more targeted campaigns, says an analysis in the Wall Street Journal. Of the $3 billion that all advertisers will spend in conjunction with the Games, $900 million will be spent in China.
Written by Maggie Lee
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