In order to draw out this comparison, first consider that as of December 10th, reporters and opinion makers were still largely guessing that Tiger Woods wouldn’t lose any sponsors. Well he did. Many of them, I think. Companies became afraid of being associated with Tiger Woods. Wow. Now some didn’t drop him, they just suspended him, I believe. Probably, and I’m totally making this up, some of his sponsors just pretended to drop him and made him sign carefully crafted legal agreements and then forced him to adopt a 9-step process to rebuild his public image.

It is notable that sponsors dropped or suspended Woods in such a short period of time. If you do a site search for “Tiger Woods” on the Calgary Herald website you get a list of 165 articles. Now these articles are listed chronologically. And 12 of those articles occur before they reported on the infamous car crash on November 27th with this article: Woods’ wife rescues golfer from smashed up car. By December 3rd, the Herald published: Sponsors willing to give troubled woods a mulligan. By the 1oth of December the Herald had written: Sponsors begin to shun woods. By February 22nd there had been roughly 150 articles including: Dalai Lama weighs in on Tiger Woods. ¹

Some might argue that this is evidence that the Calgary Herald wastes time and resources writing about socially insignificant issues. Some would argue that the energy that the Herald puts towards this issue is evidence that they lack journalistic integrity. But these issues are not mine today. Perhaps I will quickly note, however, that since these articles are about Tiger Woods, they are actually affecting, even constructing, the public opinion about Tiger Woods. They report the news and they make the news all at once. But this is a digression.

The point, and the point of comparison, is that an individual’s billion dollar brand was tarnished so much that in the span of a couple of weeks, his sponsors had to either drop him, suspend him, pretend to drop him, or at the very least, hold tense stakeholder meetings and press conferences. Wow. Now try to imagine what could possibly happen to the Olympics in order for that to happen. It’s almost impossible to imagine. The brand is too diversified. It’s too secure. And partly, I would argue, the public opinion shapers, like the Calgary Herald, have too much invested in the Olympics and the Olympic machine. When the Woods scandal came out, the companies involved with Woods pulled their ads featuring him. But if there was Olympic scandal involving individuals or teams, they would just switch individuals and teams. There is nothing that could happen that could cause the Olympic brand, in toto, to crash that hard, that fast. Even if some athletes became embroiled in some kind of publicity disaster, there would still be thousands of others. And even if some entire teams, or a few countries of teams became publicly toxic, there would still be entire other countries of teams to cushion the brand.

Of course, knowing this, it’s no wonder that the IOC carefully developed, and then enclosed, and then protected that brand within a vast legal framework in order to sell it to the highest bidders. How better to support the cause of amateur sport and international peace & cooperation?

It’s of interest to me because the flame is a symbol. That’s it.

I mean, really, if someone took it, you could just light another one and keep running. Do people think there is something magic about combustion? The fuel runs out – you have to keep filling it up. It’s not like we live in an age where it’s hard to light. But the effort that gets put into protecting the flame, is really part of a larger brand management strategy designed to protect and create the symbolic meanings surrounding the Olympics. It’s not that different from the superstitions and the symbolic meanings surrounding Christianity. Except of course that this Greek flame hearkens back to a polytheist era of Gods and Goddesses.

But what if the singer or athlete turns out to be less charismatic than their agent let on. Or what if they turn out to be downright poisonous? Well companies have often fortified themselves against this kind of risk by opting to be associated with an entire team instead. Or better yet, a whole sport. Why sponsor a hockey team when you can just buy ad time during hockey games? After all, even a team can do poorly. Even a team can become defamed or end up with less brand value then their agent assured you they had. An entire sport is harder to tarnish and generally more resilient. And I don’t care how boring you think an organization might be, if they are associated with the feelings of excitement and joy people have about sports, then your brand becomes more exciting and more joyous. ¹

I leave it to the reader to apply this logic one step further to the Olympics.

Much like any large organization, the Olympics has to work very hard to make sure that not just anyone associates their brand with the Olympics. To earn the right to associate with the Olympics you have to pay. Big time. If you don’t pay, you infringe on their rights – they call this ambush marketing. There is a sense of entitlement around the Olympics that makes it common for businesses and organizations to do just this. That’s because part of the Olympic experience is about community and sharing. So managing the Olympic brand can be a little tricky. Here’s a sentence from the Vancouver2010 website: “Vancouver 2010 is an open invitation for everyone to share in the Olympic and Paralympic journeys.” Of course, they don’t mean that they’re willing to share their brand. That takes a little money.

While everyone and their dog is trying to be seen with all of that feel-good Olympic stuff, the Olympics is also an increasingly controversial event with an increasing number of people arguing that it’s not feel-good at all. This Globe and Mail article tells us that a recent survey shows BCers aren’t really into the Games: “Asked if they were excited about the coming Games, 71 per cent of British Columbians said they were either not very excited or not excited at all. Only nine per cent said they were very excited.” Balance that against concerns regarding the loss of liberty associated with hosting the games, and it could spell concern for the value of the Olympic Brand.

More on this soon.