One sponsor is helping everybody else onto the Olympic springboard
COUNTDOWN TO THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES
163 DAYS TO GO
CBS Outdoor’s UK head explains why it is the official outdoor advertising services provider for 2012
Q. WHAT WAS YOUR BRAND’S PRIMARY REASON FOR BEING INVOLVED WITH THE GAMES?
A. CBS Outdoor felt very heavily involved in the pitch for London 2012. We worked closely with TfL and the Mayor’s Office to help dress London when it was pitching itself for the Olympic Games. When the London 2012 organising committee Locog came out and said “we want a media partner, we want an advertising services partner to be used to promote the Olympic Games, to work hand in hand with our PR machine” we felt that we were a natural fit for that. The benefit for us that we were able to showcase our fantastic assets and point to the great work we’ve done with Locog. We also get some insight on how the advertising has been received and then we are able to use that to promote our assets. But primarily we’re 41 per cent of the out of home London marketplace. About 23-24 per cent for the whole of the UK. Because we’re the market leader in London it just felt naturally right for us to be there.
Of course it is a public transport Games, with every venue ticket including a travelcard for the day, which is a perfect fit with our product.
Q. WERE THERE ANY ISSUES THAT WERE HARD TO RECONCILE TO GET BOARD APPROVAL?
A. We all know that it’s very easy to spend money. It’s not so easy to get the value from the spending, and it’s very easy to execute badly. We recognised there was a risk because we were providing a service as a sponsor. If we let the Olympics down, there’s a negative side to that. That was definitely a concern, making sure that we could deliver what we said we were going to. Also, a lot of Olympic sponsors are business to consumer brands but we’re business to business – we’ve got a very small family that we need to be selling ourselves to. We have to get into that family and make sure they recognise the value of the association and exactly why we are doing it.
Q. WHAT ARE THE KEY COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES AT THE GAMES FOR YOU?
A. You’ve got 8.5m spectators coming to London, 10.5m coming to the UK in total. And 200,000 of those are forecasted to be opinion leaders and businessmen, people who are going to be making buying decisions about their advertising assets and media in the future. There’s going to be a huge amount of people in London. The sponsors want to reach those and activate their sponsorship and association and they’ve bought through the auction process advertising space that’s in the vicinity, within 300 metres of an event or a location. It’s really important for us to be sold out in those vicinities. We have still got some opportunities for sponsors, so we’re explaining the opportunities that are out there. Outside of the vicinity areas we want to promote our assets to every other business that wants to benefit. It’s estimated that a visitor to London for the Games will spend £85 a day, so with 8.5m coming, that’s £700m of discretionary spending to be spent in shops, restaurants, theatres, films and so on. Since 70 per cent of visitors are expected to use the underground to get around, they’re going to be in close proximity to our advertising. As a sales and marketing business it’s about driving the revenues and the numbers and we want to sell out, delivering our advertisers great value, great audiences and quality display.
From there we’ve got to make sure that this is a springboard for 2013, because we don’t want this to be a one-hit wonder. We hope that sponsors to the Olympic Games who have used out of home to activate their sponsorship recognise how effective it has been for them and continue to advertise during 2013 and on. So it isn’t just about one big spike but it’s about how do we keep those advertisers interested in CBS Outdoor.
Q. WHAT ADVICE CAN YOU GIVE NON-OFFICAL PARTNERS TO HELP THEM MAKE THE MOST OF THE COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES PRESENTED BY THE OLYMPICS?
A. Don’t presume that everything’s sold out, and don’t presume that if you’re not a sponsor you can’t do anything in London, because the vicinity legislation is very clear and it also doesn’t apply to everyone.
For instance, book and entertainment ads have been granted an exemption in the underground within the proximity limit as they are such a part of its normal look and feel. CBS also sells the advertising in Westfield Stratford City, which 70 per cent of Olympic visitors will go through and again, Westfield Stratford City isn’t covered by the exclusion legislation either, because it’s an enclosed environment. We will manage all these rules and make sure that people don’t fall foul of them. There’s still lots of opportunity in London – come and talk to us.
Jason Cotterrell is UK country director for CBS Outdoor.