A Shift In Olympic Sponsorship ——A Case Study Of How B2B Companies Benefit From Olympic Sponsorship

The primary aim of this study is to investigate how B2B companies benefit from Olympic sponsorship.The research question raised from the observation of a current trend.If we take a look at the Olympic worldwide partner list.we will find more and more B2B companies participate in Olympic sponsorship,which used to be dominated by B2C companies.The benefits of B2C companies participating in Olympic sponsorship are obvious.The large audience of a major event allows brands to increase exposure to potential consumers and influence consumer sentiment and attitudes,thus influencing purchase decisions.However,for B2B companies,its target customers are not the event’s audience but should be more niche b-end customers in the industry.Therefore,the motivation of B2B companies to participate in Olympic sponsorship must be different from B2C companies.Therefore,this paper hopes to explore how B2B enterprises benefit from Olympic sponsorship by analyzing the motivation of B2B enterprises to participate in Olympic sponsorship and the subsequent corresponding marketing method selection.In order to analyze this research question,this paper begins with a literature review of past studies.In summarizing the past research results,this paper finds that there is still relatively little research in the related field as B2B companies’ involvement in Olympic sponsorship is still a relatively new trend.Therefore,this paper summarizes a preliminary theoretical model based on the Olympic sponsorship benefit model of B2C enterprises,combined with the marketing characteristics of B2B enterprises.Furthermore.on this basis,the subsequent analysis and discussion are completed.In the analysis section,after considering the characteristics of the research problem,this study adopts a single-case study approach and selects Intel as the case study.On the one hand,as a typical B2B enterprise,Intel is very representative of its participation in Olympic sponsorship.On the other hand,due to the author’s internship experience,the study can access the relevant staff of the Intel Olympic Program Office for interviews and get firsthand data,which is conducive to the analysis.In addition to interviews,the data sources of this paper include questionnaires for customers and publicly available documents,which are in line with the data triangulation.This study mainly adopts the coding and analysis of data in terms of analysis methods.It makes additional modifications based on the original theoretical model summarized above and finally concludes with a theoretical framework that can explain the research problem.The study period for the case subjects in this paper is from the pre-tournament preparation phase to the operation during the event.Therefore,this paper will analyze how B2B companies benefit from Olympic sponsorship in their motivation to participate in Olympic sponsorship and their corresponding marketing strategies.First,in the motivation analysis part,unlike previous studies,which mainly analyze from the perspective of enterprises’ own profit-making,this paper innovatively proposes the motivation of responding to external demand.The authors observe that with the development of technology in society,the International Olympic Committee（IOC）and the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games（OCOG）,as the event organizer,also tend to create a sense of technology for the Olympic events.Therefore,this paper proposes that the participation of B2B companies in Olympic sponsorship is not a one-way choice of companies,but the result of a two-way choice reached between companies and the Olympic Organizing Committee for a win-win situation.Secondly,in the analysis of the internal motivation of B2B companies to participate in Olympic sponsorship,this paper also presents the differences between B2B companies and B2C companies.Since B2B companies provide sponsorship support mainly for technology or solutions,the Olympics is the best platform for companies to launch cutting-edge new technologies.Suppose companies can demonstrate the advantages of their technology and the possibility of future scale on such a platform.In that case,it will be highly likely to expand the business scope for the company.At the same time,B2B companies benefit from such a model and are not greatly limited by the audience’s attention to the event,as B2C companies are.As the number of target customers is smaller than that of B2C companies,it is also easier for B2B companies to use the Olympic sponsorship rights to carry out accurate marketing to achieve their business purpose.Afterward,taking Intel as an example,this study analyzes its marketing strategy during the Olympic Games.This section further analyzes how B2B companies benefit from the Olympic event.The analysis of B2B companies’ marketing strategies shows how to achieve the desired benefits in practice.Finally,the paper concludes with an analysis of the contribution of this paper to theoretical research and its reference value for business managers.However,at the same time,the shortcomings of this paper’s research due to research time constraints and other reasons are also presented,and expectations for future research are put forward.Overall,this paper explores the motivation of B2B companies to participate in Olympic sponsorship,points out the differences between B2B companies and B2C companies in Olympic sponsorship behavior,and answers the question of how B2B companies benefit from Olympic sponsorship.This paper argues that more and more B2B enterprises will participate in Olympic sponsorship as an inevitable future development trend.The benefits model of B2B enterprises in Olympic sponsorship summarized in this paper will also provide a certain degree of reference value for enterprise managers.