Successful athletes in Paris have acquired their medals on Louis Vuitton trays earlier than being handed a Samsung flip telephone to take a “victory selfie”, heralding a brand new period of product placement on the Olympics that Los Angeles seems set to construct upon.
The medalists’ podium photograph didn’t occur by likelihood. Samsung 005930.KS instructed Reuters it started talks with the Worldwide Olympic Committee 18 months forward of the Video games to plot the product placement drive.
The boundary-pushing placement of wares by high-profile sponsors LVMH LVMH.PA and Samsung in Paris is illustrative of how sponsors are looking for new industrial alternatives from an occasion that also has strict guidelines round promoting inside competitors venues.
Samsung mentioned the technique was “driving consciousness of the brand new Galaxy Z Flip6 globally,” although it didn’t present particulars on gross sales because the Paris Video games opened.
In the meantime on-line searches for LVMH grew 43% in the USA in the course of the first week of the Video games, in line with digital evaluation supplier Captify.
The opening ceremony noticed artists Woman Gaga, Aya Nakamura and Celine Dion all clad in LVMH model Dior, while the occasion included a minutes-long video showcasing Louis Vuitton’s design and crafting of the Olympic flame trunks and medal trays.
“Paris has moved issues on considerably for all and created one thing that’s been like a playground for manufacturers – the final word playground,” mentioned Steve Martin, founding companion of MSQ Sport and Leisure, a sports activities advertising and marketing company.
Paris 2024 has seen sponsors and broadcasters flip to product placement, influencers and superstar commentators like U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg to achieve youthful audiences and new markets.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee this week mentioned it was embracing the pattern and facilitating it.
Organisers of Los Angeles 2028 say their Video games – with a funds estimated at $6.9 billion – will probably be privately funded by way of a mixture of sponsorship, ticket income, broadcast and merchandise revenues, and never taxpayer cash.
LA28 officers instructed Reuters they’d raised greater than $1 billion in home sponsorship up to now, greater than Paris had achieved on the similar level, and was two thirds of the best way towards its aim that exceeds $2 billion.
LA28 anticipates saying an auto sponsor by the tip of the 12 months, LA28 CEO Casey Wasserman instructed Reuters.
“We’re available in the market for the class, we’ve acquired very energetic discussions and I think about that earlier than year-end, we’re more likely to announce our companion,” he mentioned.
THE ‘COMEBACK OLYMPICS’
The elevated product placement at Paris 2024 is more likely to immediate debate over simply how far to push it.
Michael Payne, a former IOC advertising and marketing director, mentioned the overt show of LVMH wares in the course of the opening ceremony and the ‘victory selfies’ with Samsung’s flip telephone threatened to cross a wonderful line.
“Different sponsors will say, ‘nicely, why can’t I’ve one thing on the medal stand?’” he mentioned. “If you happen to let that genie out of the bottle, you’ll by no means put it again,” he instructed Reuters.
Nonetheless, the IOC seems set on its course.
“That is the trail that we’re taking, intentionally, and you will note issues evolve in that course in future Video games,” Anne-Sophie Voumard, the IOC’s Managing Director of Tv and Advertising and marketing Companies, instructed reporters this week.
The IOC’s shift was “encouraging”, mentioned Martin Sorrell, the founder and former chief govt of WPP, a number one international promoting group.
Los Angeles’ popularity as a metropolis that oozes superstar glamour, wealth and ostentation was a tantalising prospect for sponsors, mentioned Harry Poole, vice chairman of selling options at Excel Sports activities Administration.
“There couldn’t be a greater industrial market,” he mentioned.
