Small firms' road to the Olympics - advertising by small businesses

Nation's Business, July, 1992 by Glen Macnow

In the world market of bottled waters, Roaring Spring is as competitive with Evian as, say, the typical health-club jogger is with 1988 olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis. While Evian has $3 Million to spend sponsoring the 1992 olympics in Barcelona, Spain, executives of Roaring Spring can only imagine having such wherewithal.

"We're just a regional company," says Scott Hoover, general manager of the Roaring Spring Bottling Co., in Chambersburg, Pa. "That kind of budget, that kind of exposure is out of our league."

But that doesn't mean a small business like Roaring Spring can't catch the Olympic spirit--and gain something from it And so for about $10,000, Roaring Spring sponsored one tiny aspect of this year's Summer Games, the June bicycling road trials in Altoona, Pa. As a sponsor, the company hung banners and distributed free samples of its products at the trials.

Certainly that won't gamer as much attention as Evian's nationally broadcast prime-time commercials. But, says Hoover, "It helped us reach our customers. And it made us feel good about being part of America's Olympic effort."

In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious to this country's Olympic leaders that to go for the gold, they've got to have the green.

To raise that money, they have created more marketing and advertising Opportunities. This year, total Olympic sponsorships are expected to exceed $800 million, more than double the amount spent on sponsorships for the 1988 Games. Sponsorships range from around $10,000 more than $10 million.

Most of that money comes from large corporations. But an increasing amount is coming from small businesses that have learned the secret of the five P's: Properly promoted patriotism produces profits.

"If done right, Olympic sponsorships can be an extremely effective way to impress customers and clients," says Jim Crimmins, who studied Olympic marketing as director of strategic planning and research for the DDB Needham Worldwide advertising agency. "Many Americans feel it's their patriotic duty" to buy from Olympic sponsors, says Crimmins, citing market research conducted during the 1988 Summer Games. More than 61 percent of the respondents to a poll said they felt that buying the products of Olympic sponsors enabled them to help the Olympic effort.

Boosting America's best athletes not only can increase sales, say those who have tried it, but also can build employee morale and a company's standing in the community.

The firms interviewed for this story have attempted varied strategies and spent wide-ranging amounts for their connection with this year's Summer Games. But they share a common outlook: All plan to get involved again either in the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, or in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta.

Following are three ways in which small businesses can become involved with the Olympics:

Sponsor An Olympic Event Or Athlete

Becoming an official patron of the U.S. Olympic basketball team cost about $1 million this year. But the Barcelona Games comprise dozens of sports, some of which businesses could sponsor for amounts in the low five figures.

Consider, for example, white-water canoeing and kayaking. When the Olympic trials were held in May on the Savage River in western Maryland, the sponsors were not all major conglomerates. There were also small firms trying to reach specialized audiences.

Typical was PowerFood Inc., the Berkeley, Calif., manufacturer of Power-Bars, which are billed as a "high-carbohydrate, low-fat athletic energy food." Company officials handed out thousands of the bars, strung up advertising banners, and gave out T-shirts, hoping paddlers might wear them during competition.

"I saw canoe-kayak as a way to reach the market we're trying to attract," says Powerfood promotions executive Laurel Lynch. "These are high-endurance athletes who require a lot of fuel for training. Our product can be a real staple of their diet. Plus, what better way to show that the bars are waterproof?"

Lynch says the hope is that canoeists and kayakers eating the product "will trend-set from the Olympic athletes down to the outdoor recreationalists."

Exposure is crucial for that strategy to work. Crimmins' study concluded that as many as 75 percent of sponsors' campaigns fell short in 1988 because they failed to promote their efforts adequately and ended up lost amid the barrage of Olympic-related advertising.

This year, it may be easier to attract attention--even for the smaller firms. NBC, which is broadcasting from Barcelona, plans to supplement its free, over-the-air telecasts with 1,080 hours of pay-per-view TV on three additional channels. Now, even a sport like kayaking will be more available to its TV-viewing aficionados.

If a paddler turns up in a Powerbar T-shirt, for example, or wearing Teva aquatic sandals supplied by Deckers Corp., of Carpinteria, Calif., the benefits could be enormous.

"We're trying to make our effort as visible as possible," says Jean McPherson, advertising and promotions manager for Deckers. "That's why we use the kayak team logo in all our ad credibility."