A Study On Beijing 2008 Olympic Marketing

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will not be just a sports event watched by billions. It will also be a golden marketing opportunity for enterprises. For many of China's new brands and leading companies, the Games will provide a unique international platform to showcase themselves to the world. For leading global companies, the Games will open the gates to the most important market in the world.The sponsorship program of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games consists of five tiers: 12 TOP partners, 11 Beijing 2008 partners, 10 Beijing 2008 sponsors, 15 Beijing 2008 exclusive suppliers, and 17 Beijing 2008 suppliers. Chinese enterprises actively take part in the Olympic marketing, expecting their own world-class brands will be launched from the platform of the Olympic Games.Most Chinese enterprises, however, are still at the exploration stage of Olympic marketing. Many enterprises have invested huge sum of money but lacked of systematic marketing strategy and had many problems during the process of marketing.This thesis is devoted to the study of Olympic marketing for the sponsors of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. It analyzes the current marketing situation of the sponsors, then finds the problems, and puts forward how to do marketing under the guidance of an integrated marketing strategy. Generally speaking, the Olympic period can be divided into the following sections: pre-Olympic, mid-Olympic and post-Olympic. Some researchers have done studies about the marketing during the pre-Olympic and mid-Olympic periods. The feature of this thesis lies in proposing how to do marketing during the post-Olympic period, which seems to be ignored by most enterprises. The enterprises should extend the cycle of Olympic marketing and enhance their brand equity, so that they can be paid back from their enormousinvestment.This thesis has four parts. Chapter one serves as an overview of the Olympic marketing. This part outlines the Olympic Marketing Programs and sponsorships. Chapter two introduces the marketing undertaken during the previous Olympics and it also analyzes successful and unsuccessful cases. Chapter three mainly deals with the Olympic marketing in China and some existing problems. Chapter four, the most significant part, focuses on how to do Olympic marketing. After introducing the basic theory of integrated marketing and the linkage between this theory and the Olympic Games, the author puts forward the specific measures to do Olympic marketing for three periods; those are the pre-Olympics, the mid-Olympics, the post-Olympics. In the conclusion, it is suggested that during the process of Olympic marketing, we should consider it as a whole and use the theory of Integrated Marketing to guide it. As the 2008 Olympic Games are pending, the enterprises should pay more attention to mid-Olympic marketing and post-Olympic marketing.