The Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games kick off today and are expected to bring more than 15 million people to Paris. But French retailers aren’t the only ones looking to capture consumers’ attention this summer. Global brands are expected to generate an estimated $100 million through sales of licensed products around this year’s games.
The Olympics are a prime opportunity for retailers of all sizes to boost brand awareness and create meaningful engagement with sports fans, patriotic viewers and consumers. Here are four ways retailers are embracing this year’s Olympics:
- Sponsorship
The knowledge that a brand is an official sponsor of the Olympics improves its perception among consumers. Some of the world’s largest brands, including Coca-Cola, Visa and Toyota, are sponsoring the Olympic Games with partnerships. LVMH, for example, paid nearly $160 million to obtain a premium sponsorship; one of the results is that Louis Vuitton’s leather bags will hold some of the medals and trophies. This Olympics will be Nike’s “largest media spend” yet and “the biggest moment for Nike in years.”
P&G brands will be providing complimentary products, from shampoo to razors, to more than 22,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes and their staff in the Athletes’ Village. It’s also using its sponsorship in a unique way by partnering with more than 100 athletes to provide grant funding to the charities of their choice through the “Athletes for Good” program.
- Olympic-Themed Products
In April, Reese’s launched Reese’s Medals to celebrate the games. Mondelez, which owns snacks and treats like Ritz, Cadbury, Oreo and Sour Patch Kids, also designed Olympic-themed food products and launched a contest awarding five people Olympic trip packages to Paris.
Warner Brothers has partnered with Olympic Committees from eight countries to create country specific “Olympic Team x Looney Tunes” merchandise across all major product categories, including Fashion & Sportswear, Toys, Collectibles, Sporting Goods, Beauty & Grooming, Home and Seasonal.
The North Face will be outfitting several Olympic climbers, and it is also releasing new, themed consumer products beginning in July, including competition shorts, T-shirts and tank tops. Ralph Lauren has launched a Team USA collection, and Pacsun – while not a sponsor – has created a International Olympics Committee Heritage capsule, including tees and sweats inspired by the Olympic Games of 1948 and 1956.
- Uniforms
There is no more coveted platform for a sportswear designer than the Olympics. Sports giants like Nike and Adidas have decades of history dressing members of Olympic teams. But Olympians are also being dressed by smaller brands this year. For example, Cariuma, a sustainable skate shoe brand, is designing Olympic uniforms for the first time. Swedish clothing company J. Lindeberg is making uniforms for the U.S. men’s and women’s golf teams.
Other retailers are turning directly to athletes to help design products. Luxury footwear brand P448 is working with some Olympic skateboarders to design shoes for the consumer market. Lululemon created a Team Canada x lululemon Paris 2024 Athlete Kit that involved feedback from 19 Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes across 14 different sports. Select items will be sold to consumers as part of a Retail Collection.
- Advertising and Marketing Campaigns
More than three billion people are expected to watch the Olympics this year. NBC has sold more than $1.2 billion in advertising, on track to be the most in Olympic history.
But brands are also designing their own Olympic-themed marketing campaigns. Omega, for example, is the official timekeeper and supplier of equipment for timing each event. It has created print ads featuring athletes from a range of countries and sports, and a video with new songs from French rapper SDM.
Companies that are not official partners of the games also plan to use images and other footage of participants for advertising purposes (they must obtain official consent to do so). But no rules prohibit smaller brands from creating Olympic-inspired or celebratory content. The 2020 Olympics’ channels broke all traffic records, generating over 3.7 billion engagements. For the 2024 Olympics, retailers will also celebrate the games on social media by sharing content series with a sports-related twist, contests, giveaways and tailored promotions.
As the first Summer Olympics post-COVID, the mood of this year’s games will be especially celebratory, enabling retailers of all sizes and in all categories to engage consumers in new ways. Expect retailers to capture consumer attention through themed events, promotions, storytelling, social media engagement and more.