Olympic Advertising and NBC

                Having seen and learned an enormous amount in the advertising industry over the course of my internship, I just thought it would be interesting to reflect on some of the notable intricacies of the Olympics, which always seem to dominate public attention during their air time. When NBC paid $1.2 Billion for the exclusive rights to the Olympics they really dug themselves into a hole because by paying this exorbitant premium, they handcuffed themselves to reaching such a high quota. NBC wants cable providers to pay more and in turn charge the consumer more while advertisers are forced during this Olympics to pay more than ever before as NBC tries to re-evaluate and change. Overall things have been more than interesting for the 2012 Olympics in London.

                On a different side of things, the advertisers that are in fact paying these elevated prices for ad time and ad space are being outmaneuvered by companies who are getting similar connections with their brand to the Olympics using a strategy called “ambush marketing”. What this essentially means is that advertisers can associate themselves with a specific event or happening without having to pay for the sponsorship costs. This is achieved by letting the viewer infer the connection through what could be called subliminal advertising without ever explicitly making the connection.

                The first great example of this was the ad Nike premiered in late July. The advertisement (shown below) depicts various everyday athletes doing a variety of activities with the motto “find your greatness”. What makes the ad ambush marketing is that Nike includes dozens of images of the word “London” on a variety of different objects from swim caps to street signs. At any other time, this would mean relatively little, but Nike lets the viewer make a mental association between the Olympics and Nike and doesn’t have to pay to sponsor the Olympics. Although the advertisement never says anything about London, England or the Olympics the inference within the ad allows Nike to tie its brand to the Olympics thereby increasing the value of their brand for a fraction of the cost that other advertisers are paying.

                Similar to Nike, Burger King decided to sneak one past McDonald’s with its advertising campaign in Brazil. As clearly depicted, the pack of fries closely resembles the Olympic torch. In addition to this Burger King is offering a double portion of fries the day after Brazil wins a medal in any event. Unlike Nike however, this advertising campaign is a lot less subtle as it does in fact tie itself to the Olympics through the double fries promotion directly associated with how well Brazil performs in the Olympics. Thus Burger King hopes to connect Brazilian Olympic success with its products. Strange I know, and let’s be honest, the athletes in those fast food commercials never actually eat that junk, but the campaign is no doubt to be a success for Burger King (pending a lawsuit from the good people at McDonald's).

                These two campaigns are not the first of their kind, but are generating a lot of buzz and even more positive media for Nike and Burger King as these videos are passed along and scrutinized. Although as an ESPN employee, I would have preferred to have the Olympics broadcasted on our own networks, it made far more fiscal sense to allow NBC to pay through the nose and continually bungle the process. The Olympics as a brand has suffered in this regard because from the very beginning the people at home have been discontent with what’s been happening on the NBC network. I think most people can agree that the opening ceremonies were generally a disaster and poorly aired which set the stage for complaints ranging from staggered tape delays to the vast difference in broadcasting quality between NBC and BBC. The American public generally agrees it has been getting the short end here so it has been thought-provoking to see our media rival flounder s.

                As a last note, I’d just like to add two advertisements I encountered that I felt it was my duty as a blogger to spread to the world. One is of MMA Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva who is a spokesman for Burger King and promoted the ambush marketing campaign via Twitter over the last few days. The other is an ad for Ragu pasta sauce that aired for the Olympics which is… well, quality advertising.

                                              

Invasion of Privacy

                One of the most recent issues with the development of technology is privacy. A few weeks ago Microsoft released the news that all of the browsers on its new computers and software would have the Internet privacy settings automatically set to on, something that has never been done before. The reason this was so unheard of was that companies that wanted to advertise digitally wanted that information from consumer’s browsers in order to better reach their target audience by monitoring their activity on the Internet.

I can personally attest to the shocking nature of how well some advertisers seem to know based on previous searches or simply what type of person I am based on the circulation of websites I visit in a typical month. Facebook and Google have been pioneers in this industry, divulging user’s information, pictures, and statuses in order to give advertisers a more accurate view of exactly who they are targeting. Unlike many social media websites that may have rotational or fixed ads for the general population, Facebook caters each page towards a specific user in order to give advertisers a placement which they know reaches their desired demographic. In a recent article Facebook admitted that around 135 million of its users created no content, meaning they either individuals or companies created this accounts for the sole reason of observing other active users accounts, which we can assume is then collected into data and sold to advertisers. These 135 million are called lurkers, the name itself connoting dastardly deeds, and these accounts are simply there to invade your privacy and catalogue your activity. 

Additionally, just in the past few weeks data company Datalogix has created new software that allows companies wishing to buy ad space digitally to target their audience based on what they watch on television. By partnering with TRA, a company acquired by TiVO, digital ad buyers will have access to this information based on data pulled from cable boxes in millions of homes. TRA and Datalogix can provide online ad buyers a perspective of what type of person lives in that household and how to market effectively to them online. Using this data from over 4 million households, advertisers can examine the millions of online impressions and cookies from a single user or a group of similar users and extrapolate this to the general public. For example, if a certain type of person watches X television show then they are more inclined to see Y movie when it comes out and if all those people have certain websites in common, that is exactly where a company would choose to advertise because of this new technology. It is exactly here where the issue of privacy comes into play.

Although the Obama Administration and the Federal Trade Commission have proposed changes and issued reports in their “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change” they haven’t actually made an difference in an advertising industry that is in no rush to police itself and cut profit margins. Many consumers aren’t even aware that they can turn off behavioral targeted ads and monitoring. Eventually, if the market doesn’t change to alert consumers to their choice in this matter or the digital advertising industry doesn’t change altogether , we can expect that Congress will have to make some type of ruling outlining the exact extent to which the everyday person has a right to privacy on the Internet.  

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