An international arena

Companies view Olympics as platform to advertise products globally in a bid to tap new markets

Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Manulife Financial, and Visa are all running ads during the Olympics, realizing they can reach consumers in yet-untapped markets.

In the Beijing Olympics, global is the name of the game - for advertisers, especially.

During this year's Olympics, marketers can't afford to just think locally. Despite a long rush to build business in Asia, India, and other adjacent territories, these regions in many ways are still new territory for both marketers and even many consumers. So, using old shots of US athletes winning medals may not be the best notion.

"Jingoism only goes so far," said John Moore, senior vice president and director of ideas and innovation at Wenham's Mullen ad agency. "The only way that major brands grow is by being successful globally, and China is in many ways the next frontier."

In the past, marketers have typically run ads that play off Olympic themes, such as a McDonald's ad from the 2000 Sydney Olympic games that showed runners passing french fries instead of a baton. Some have been even more traditional: 2004 Athens Olympics ads from AT&T and the then-separate AT&T Wireless both talked about products and services.

While some marketers still rely on appearances by former Olympians or even zany antics (Lenovo, which shows a laptop computer that shoots vaporizing rays), many are using the Olympics' setting as a chance to offer a twist on the usual themes.

For instance, McDonald's boasts a clever ad that depicts two Chinese children fighting - "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" style - with chopsticks to win one last Chicken McNugget. Visa has an ad that helps viewers relive the Olympics victory by US gymnast Mary Lou Retton, but its tagline, "Go World," suggests a broader view. And Coca-Cola sports a frenetic, animated ad showing Chinese basketball player Yao Ming and a host of national icons such as pandas and a dragon taking on US counterpart LeBron James, who counters with a cowboy, an eagle, and Santa Claus. In the end, the two applaud each other while the commercial preaches unity.

Because the large Chinese populace is "increasingly wealthy and desirous of Western goods," and gives rise to "a rapidly expanding immigrant and expat community that has remained psychologically very linked to the homeland," said Ted Nelson, principal/strategy at Mechanica, a Newburyport ad agency, the Olympics attract "a population base that no global marketer can afford to not cater to."

For its part, Manulife Financial Corp., owner of Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services, is also focusing its marketing abroad instead of placing emphasis on the no-nonsense, sometimes shocking commercials for which John Hancock - a longtime Olympic advertiser - is known. Indeed, one print ad shows a young Asian girl named Wong Lok Yiu striking a cute pose in a pink ballerina outfit under the gaze of a teddy bear and reads: "Whatever is important to you in life, we'll help you achieve it. So go ahead . . . dream on. We'll help you get there."

"Our Olympic activation is focused on the 10 countries and territories in Asia in which we have operations," including China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan, said Catherine Battershill, a Manulife senior manager for regional brand development and communications, Asia, via e-mail.

As Manulife's efforts reveal, there's much to be gained from advertising to different peoples with familiar cultural references. Indeed, the absence of John Hancock from these Olympics reveals how the opportunity to speak to a broader populace can prompt big changes to traditional marketing plans.

John Hancock has become an Olympics mainstay, and has been a worldwide sponsor since 1994. For the 1996 Atlanta Games, Hancock ran a 90-second commercial featuring grainy clips from a century earlier showing South Boston triple jumper Jim Connolly. In 2000, the insurer had to tone down a controversial ad for the Olympics that appeared to depict a gay couple who had just adopted a baby.

In 2005, one year after Manulife acquired Hancock, the company suggested it was reevaluating some of Hancock's many sports-related sponsorships, including the Olympics sponsorship, which ends this year. Manulife "has said publicly for some time now that we will be focusing our sponsorship dollars elsewhere once our sponsorship comes to an end at the end of this year," said Battershill.

The decision to drop the Olympics sponsorship would just be the latest example of how mergers and acquisitions can radically change long-standing advertising creations. Despite the popularity of the Cingular name, AT&T squelched it after purchasing co-owner BellSouth in 2006. Likewise, the advertising industry expects to see changes to how Budweiser, Bud Light, and other popular Anheuser-Busch Cos. beverages are marketed once the St. Louis brewer, currently an Olympics sponsor, is acquired by Belgium's InBev, a deal expected to close by year-end.

Brian Steinberg is the television editor of Advertising Age.