The 2012 Olympic Games are underway and as an avid Olympic enthusiast (more so for the Winter Games I must admit), I tend to tune in as much as possible to live footage of swimming, diving, basketball, gymnastics and track - and since the 2010 Games, I've been on the Twitterverse to get real-time updates on our athletes, commentary on the Games itself from people around the world, and insights on logistics for such a complex, multifunctional international event (I got the chills when the forth pillar at the Vancouver Games didn't rise!)
Since I love reading and I pop my head into bookstores nearly every week, I was excited to hear about Indigo's "The World Needs More Canada" campaign. Indigo isn't a sponsor - but like most other organizations, they like to be a part of the action. As everyone in the nation - and the world - is tuning into every waking moment of the Games (and online too), they know it's their chance to increase engagement and business with their community by showing their support to domestic athletes. For Indigo, they saw this as an opportunity to reward their members - and entice new members to sign up as well to take advantage of their offers. Under their campaign, every time Canada wins a medal, members can double their points or double their discounts (great news for a bookworm like me who's been taking full advantage of both of their loyalty programs!) at Indigo stores the following day. Doesn't that give you more reason to tune into the Games and support our athletes?
If you take a look at their campaign, you'll notice there's no mention of the "Olympics", "London", "2012", "the Games" (in compliance with the IOC's brand protection policies for major sponsors these words can't be included in any promos for non-sponsors), but it's quite evident that their marketing promo is geared towards building Canadian spirit with their audience during the Olympics. When I first read about banned words for non-sponsors, I thought it would be difficult to create communications to show support for the Olympics, the host city, and athletes - there are certain words that show an immediate affiliation for the Games. Jointly using the words "world" and "Canada" in a sentence, and using our nation's colours, during this time period would symbolize a connection to the Olympics in a more discreet manner to abide with legal policies set out by the IOC. Even their rules and regulations make no mention of the forbidden words, implying that they took the necessary steps to ensure the promo would not backfire legally (Did you know using the "medals" is also against their policies? That would answer my "Why don't they have incremental discounts instead?" question when they announced this campaign on Twitter as non-sponsors cannot use the words "gold", "silver", or "bronze").
Well I'm off to catch some more Olympic action (and figuring out which books I'll purchase tomorrow since Canada just won its first medal) and hope you are going too as well - I hope to still keep this blog going with more Olympic themed marketing insights throughout the next two weeks!
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