You just have to turn on your TV to see it. Global giants like McDonald's and Coca Cola going all out for Beijing 2008 with advertising and marketing campaigns celebrating the Olympics and Chinese culture. For these corporations the prize isn't a gold medal, but exposure to China's booming market. Analysts estimate international companies have laid out 80 to 100 million dollars, just to be able to call themselves official sponsors, and that's before the hundreds of millions spent on advertising.
(Cheers.
Gan Bei.)
Sponsors have spent 2 or 3 times more in almost all categories to be the official sponsor for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and it's really because they are trying to capture the emerging Chinese middle-class.
Chinese companies are also posting splashy ads, hoping Olympics' sponsorship will raise their profile worldwide.
We are hoping to reach literally the rest of the planet, we think we have a great opportunity for us to be able to penetrate markets that we haven't been previously.
So was the Olympics' sponsorship worth the cash? Brands have to compete for attention with more than 50 sponsors and suppliers officially associated with the Games plus outside brands that try to get in on the action, for example, Adidas is the official partner of Beijing 2008, but Nike is a sponsor of Team USA Basketball and has its own advertising campaign. Olympic organizers are taking steps to protect official sponsors from such competition known as ambush marketing. They've taken control of billboards around the Olympic venues and / are even banning spectators from wearing clothing with large logos.
If someone's wearing this type of shirt into the venue, the security guards will probably stop him in front of the gate to ask him to change before getting in.
A recent study showed the mixed messages are enough to confuse the Chinese public. Sixty percent of consumers questioned said Pepsi was the official sponsor versus only 40% for Coke. Only half knew Adidas and not Nike was an official sponsor. On the streets of Beijing, we conducted our own informal survey.
Adidas, McDonalds, Nike is official, traditionally I would say Coca Cola, but I haven't seen very many Pepsi products although I am a Pepsi fan.
But companies new to China, such as office supplies from Staples can gain instant recognition from Olympic sponsorship.
It's at least effective for big multi-national companies that have already been in China for a long time, everybody knows Coca Cola, everybody knows McDonald's.
Still, with the billion potential consumers in China, many companies seem to think Olympic sponsorship is worth the risk.
Eunice Yoon CNN, Hongkong.