Search Results for: turnaround

The Long Farewell of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Part 1: Leicester City Defeats Cardiff City 1-0 for Their Chairman – The Boss


RIP Vichai

“Brighton for Chilwell again…and Graaay…Goal for Leicester City!” shouted the play-by-play announcer as Demarai Gray of Leicester City Football Club knocked a half volley into the Cardiff net. Gray immediately removed his shirt to reveal the words “For Vichai,” and then joined his teammates to celebrate with LCFC fans in their corner of Cardiff City Stadium.

“And the perfect tribute for their former chairman, who died so tragically a week ago, beautifully taken by Demarai Gray. And just look at the collective celebration, players and supporters alike.”

Demarai Gray celebrates goal against Cardiff Demarai Gray celebrates goal against Cardiff

Leicester City (LCFC) defeated Cardiff City on Saturday, November 4, 2018, in a somewhat meaningless game in the Premier League standings, but oh so meaningful to Leicester City and Premier League fans all over the world.

It was only a week ago on Saturday, October 27, when the routine turned into disaster as LCFC’s chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, boarded the team helicopter at the end of a Leicester City game from the middle of the LCFC pitch. Only moments later after barely making it out or the stadium, the helicopter spun out of control and crashed into the stadium parking lot in a ferocious ball of flames.

While players, staff and fans speculated, it took several hours before the press told the world what was suspected – Vichai, along with two members of Vichai’s staff, Nursara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, pilot Eric Swaffer and the pilot’s friend, Izabela Roza Lechowicz, perished in the accident.

It has been a week of shock and tears for Leicester City fans, whose love for their former chairman is bottomless. Fans and experts credit Vichai with a turnaround that is, essentially, unprecedented in the Premier League. In 2010, Vichai was part of a consortium that purchased the English Football League Championship club Leicester City, and became chairman a year later.

Leicester City Cardiff City moment of silence Moment of silence before start of match between Leicester City and Cardiff City

Leicester City would then go on a run that is essentially unprecedented. The team made it to the top football league in England, the Premier League, and in the 2015-2016 campaign, despite being given a 5,000-to-1 shot of winning the league championship, decisively brought the title home to Leicester City. Imagine a Double AA team in America’s baseball farm system rising together to make it to Triple A ball, the Major Leagues, and then winning the American League East. In America, that’s not possible. But then again, no one thought Leicester City’s rise to the heights of England’s top league was possible either.

As one fan said after Vichai passed away, “he made us champions.”

FCLC’s chairman was also the founder of King Power, the dominant duty-free business in Thailand, which is the name that adorns the team’s stadium and jerseys. And while there has been resistance to foreign owners of Premier League football clubs in the past, Vichai helped bring a winning attitude to the team while demonstrating a powerful common touch, reaching out to the fan base in intimate ways. He would provide beer and food to fans in the stadium, handing them personally to them. He awarded 60 random season ticket holders free renewals this year on his 60th birthday, a special birthday for Asians.

“It’s a big thing for Leicester City, this,” said one elderly lady paying tribute outside King Power Stadium. “And he was the best bloke you could have. He never went without acknowledging you. He was OK giving you bacon sandwiches you know, your cup of tea before you went your breakfast.”

Gab Marcotti, senior writer for ESPN FC, remarked how unique Vichai was:

Without question Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, from the moment he took over Leicester City FC, well before the miracle and whatever else, he invested money in the club. He was also very clear about having a footprint in the community, donating money to local charities, taking time to stay and greet the fans before and after games. It’s very easy to be cynical about these billionaires who buy Premier League clubs. Is it just a play thing? Is it something where he wants a financial return? It might have been those things but it was also something he really lived for every match day.   It’s no coincidence that it led to his passing that he made the effort of coming over there, flying his helicopter onto the pitch, on and off before and after the game. Without question, he was one of the most beloved owners of the Premier League.

Vichai The Boss

A couple of days before the match with Cardiff City, LCFC manager, Claude Puel said that “The game is not important. The result is not important, but our desire, our actions to give our best on the pitch to honour our chairman, is the most important thing. About our conviction, our focus, we will be ready. I am confident the players can give their best.”

At the end of the match with Cardiff City, happy they could win the game for their beloved chairman, the team stood together in front of their fans. As Cardiff City Stadium emptied out, the LCFC fans in their corner of the stadium, many wearing white t-shirts with Vichai’s face boldly saying “The Boss,” stood and sang Leicester City songs, held up flags of Thailand, chanting “Vi-chai.”

For a long time, amidst the empty stadium, the players and fans communed, trying their best to say good bye. The players finally parted, and made their way to the locker room to begin preparations for a long flight to Bangkok, Thailand to attend the funeral for their chairman.

Continue reading →

Why The Rio Olympics Will be a Success: The Olympic Values and the 2000 “Celebrate Humanity” Campaign

 

Celebrate Humanity logo.jpgWhy do we love the Olympics? Why will the Rio Olympics succeed despite the political, environmental, security and health issues hanging over the Games like a black cloud on the verge of bursting?

Because we love what The Olympics make us feel, what the five colored rings represent: hope, dreams and inspiration, friendship and fair play, and the joy we have in making an effort.

After the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta, considered one of those most commercially blatant Olympics in the modern age, and the bid-rigging scandals of the Salt Lake City Games, the International Olympic Committee believed they had to reassert and protect the brand by reminding the world what the true value of the Olympics were. Thus was born the Celebrate Humanity campaign.

Enrolling TBWA, Chiat Day and their legendary worldwide creative director, Lee Clow, the man who developed the commercial that launched the Macintosh (“Think Different”), the IOC launched a series of public service announcements on television that dominated the airwaves leading up to the 2000 Sydney Games.

With the unmistakable voice of Robin Williams bringing both joy, tenderness and strength to the images, the Celebrate Humanity ads were everywhere – on your TV, radio, on your in-flight screen, in your magazines. Incredibly, broadcasters were even asking the IOC how much they had to pay to air the spots, according to Michael Payne, who tells this story of the Olympic brand in his book, Olympic Turnaround.

The campaign included seven short films that represent the Olympic values, symbolizing them, for example, in the 400-meter sprinter, Derek Redmond of Great Britain who pulled a hamstring during the competition at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, but gamely limped onto the finish line, or the Nigerian women’s 4×100-meter relay team who celebrate their bronze medal effort after first thinking they had finished fourth.

Watch them and be inspired.

Courage

Strength is measured in pounds. Speed is measured in seconds. Courage…   You can’t measure courage.

Bronze

Just a reminder: At the Olympic Games, you don’t have to come in first to win.

Smile

When you smile, I smile, that’s the deal. I’ll not walk past you, and not look you in the eyes, and not acknowledge you. Instead we’ll pass each other and say hello. Not with our words–they’re not the same–but with our faces. I meet you and see there is good in your eyes. There’s passion in your heart and there’s a friendly hello in your smile, and for the first time we can relate and appreciate each other. That’s all it takes. That’s where it starts. Because I know that you will smile and I will smile. And all the rest is easy.

Adversary

You are my adversary, but you are not my enemy. For your resistance gives me strength, your will gives me courage, your spirit ennobles me. And though I aim to defeat you, should I succeed, I will not humiliate you. Instead, I will honor you. For without you, I am a lesser man.

Continue reading →

Visa: Coming out of No Where to Nip AMEX at the Tape

This is a wonderful commercial from Olympic global sponsor, VISA, featuring 15 Olympians making their way to Rio. Go to this link to confirm who the athletes are.

There was a time when Visa, the credit card company, was considered an after-thought in high-end travel and entertainment transactions compared to American Express. AMEX had the global brand cache that Visa craved, even though Visa was more readily accepted in three times more locations than AMEX.

There was a time when the IOC was barely afloat financially. The Olympics have been a powerful marketing opportunity for companies big and small from the 1950s to the 1980s, but the rights to market their products using the five rings were usually up to the local National Olympic committees (NOC) who sold the rights.

The International Olympic Committee were concerned not only regarding their financial situation, but also of the ability to control the Olympic brand if they were dependent on the local NOCs, who were perceived by the IOC to prioritize money over brand integrity. For example, the IOC did not like that a tobacco company was employing the Olympic brand in selling cigarettes during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The IOC, motivated by the financial success of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, as well as the ability of USOC chairman, Peter Ueberroth, to sign up corporate sponsors, decided it was time to create a global Olympic sponsorship program that would make IOC the sole negotiator for marketing rights at all Olympiads. This would prove to be a challenge because NOCs, regardless of whether they had marketing chops or not, were resistant to give up power to the global authority, the IOC. On top of that, countries like the US, were concerned that the significant number of sponsors were American corporations, which would mean that American companies would inevitably end up funding athletes in countries like the Soviet Union (this at a time before the fall of the Wall, and the emergence of Glasnost).

Olympic turnaroundOver the course of countless negotiations, the IOC eventually banged out an agreement that would satisfy NOC small and large alike. Thus was born the TOP Program (The Olympic Partner), IOC’s designation for its global sponsors, who have exclusivity within their given industry to market their products and services at a given Olympics. But according to Michael Payne, who wrote the brilliant marketing book called Olympic Turnaround: How the Olympic Games Stepped Back from the Brink of Extinction to Become the World’s Best Known Brand And a Multi-Billion Dollar Global Franchise, very few corporations, initially, were willing to bite.

Coca Cola, Kodak and FedEx signed up, but for a while, those were the only corporations willing to take on the a most serious financial commitment to be the exclusive global sponsors at the 1988 Winter and Summer Olympics. Then IOC leader, Juan Antonio Samaranch appealed to the chairman of AMEX, James Robinson, to no avail. AMEX did not think they had any competitor willing to ante up, so they were willing to wait out the IOC for a better deal.

But then, circumstances colluded to bring Visa to the IOC. According to Payne, Visa had a change in marketing heads. And the new marketing head saw an opportunity to use the Olympic brand to make their customers aware of how far and wide Visa was accepted, and snatch market share from AMEX. By the time all the analysis was said and done, the line that convinced the VISA board to foot a US$14.5 million bill for TOP status was this: Visa was “going to stick the blade into the ribs of American Express”.

Was it worth the gamble? According to Payne, who was a member of the team that helped build the TOP program, the answer was yes.

For Visa, the payoff was dramatic. Global sales volume for the first three years of its Olympic partnership increased 18 percent against its own forecast of 12 per cent. Results from direct response campaigns and other promotions were 17 per cent higher when Olympic imagery was used. Card volume increased by 21 per cent during periods of Olympic promotion. Consumers who were aware of Visa’s Olympic sponsorship had dramatically better views of Visa, doubling their perception of Visa as a good corporate citizen: a 50 per cent increase in attitudes of overall best card and used for international travel.

Continue reading →

Japan’s Team – The Oriental Witches of the 1964 Olympics Part 3: A Symbol of a Nation Rising from the Ruins

Oriental Witches_4_Tokyo Shimbun
That instant when the weight of a nation fell off their shoulders, from Tokyo Shimbun.

October 23, 1964 was a momentous day for Japan. Two of the most memorable sports events in Japanese history took place on that day, both which left irrevocable imprints on the Japanese psyche.

That afternoon, hulkingingly tall Anton Geesink of the Netherlands handily defeated Akio Kaminaga of Japan in the open weight class of the judo competition at the Budokan, thus denying Japan to win gold in all four weight classes in judo’s debut at the Tokyo Olympics.

That evening, the Japanese women’s volleyball team closed out the Soviet Union in three straight sets to win gold at the Komazawa Indoor Ball Sports Field, thus fulfilling the expectations of an entire nation.

The Japanese judoka did their country proud by dominating and winning in the other weight classes of a sport that was born in Japan. But despite the fact that Geesink had already defeated Kaminaga in the past, including in this particular Olympic tournament, the shock to the nation of a non-Japanese winning a judo competition was significant.

In comparison to the “West”, the Japanese saw themselves as underdogs. After all, it was only 19 years earlier when the Allied Forces flattened Japan with its superior weaponry, and then ruled over Japan as occupiers for over 5 years. Judo was a Japanese creation, and yet a taller, stronger Westerner easily defeated Japan’s best. Was Geesink’s victory yet another symbol of Japan’s “inferiority”?

But only a few hours later, the national psychology was already undergoing a shift, as people all over the country completed their day’s work, settled down to meals, or gathered in public places to watch the finals of the women’s volleyball competition. The Japanese team had never lost since joining international competition and losing to the Soviet Union in the volleyball world championships in 1960. This very team had already defeated the Soviet Union at the 1962 world championships…in Moscow. And so, the weight of an entire country pushed heavily on the shoulders of these Japanese women, particularly after the jarring disappointment of that day’s judo finals.

Fortunately, the women of the Japanese volleyball team restored their country’s faith in themselves by easily defeating the Soviet Union in three sets. The shorter, less muscular team from Asia defeated the taller, more powerful team from the West, on the biggest sports stage in the world, on the final competitive day of the 1964 Olympics.

Oriental Witches_5_Asahi Graf
The Japanese women’s volleyball team sharing their success with one of the owners of a hotel the team often used on their trips around the country, from the Asahi Graf.

In fact, the way the Japanese women – aka, The Oriental Witches – won became a symbol for Japan and its dramatic turnaround, from a nation defeated and devastated to a nation most resilient and proud. Christian Tagsold of Heinrich Heine University describes this symbolism in his article entitled, “Remember to Get Back on Your Feet Quickly: the Japanese Women’s Volleyball team at the 1964 Olympics as a ‘Realm of Memory’.”

… the Oriental Witches were clearly linked to the economic and technological progress of the 1960s. This success replaced the more classical notions of the nation in Japan and supported a new type of nationalism. Economic achievements were vital for regaining international standing as a nation, because the GNP acted as a yardstick for national pride. The Oriental Witches embodied this new self-assurance.

Tagsold is referring in his title to a particular maneuver developed by team coach Hirobumi Daimatsu, a technique called “kaiten reshibu” (receive and rotate). Players were trained to dive for balls, using their momentum to roll as they hit the ground, like a judoka would, so that they could emerge back on their feet quickly to take on another attack. This technique was a competitive advantage as Japanese players were more willing to dive to the hard court floors and quicker to their feet than players on other teams.

Tagsold highlights this technique as a symbol of how the underdog Japanese can outperform bigger stronger foes, not only on the volleyball court, but also on the global economic stage.

(The kaiten reshibu) was a symbol for the means in which Japan had invested to regain her economic strength only two decades after suffering the worst. The invention of clever technical solutions was imperative to the country, which saw itself as small island without natural resources to offer. Daimatsu did for volleyball and Japanese sports, in general, what Morita Akio did as a leader of Sony and what Ohno Taiichi achieved at Toyota by introducing the Toyota Production System. The rolling dive recovered lost time and reduced the burden on Japanese bodies caused by their inferiority compared to Western athletes.

… the kaiten reshıbu could be read very naively as the story of post-war Japan. The Japanese fell, but they got back on their feet again quickly. It had taken the country only 19 years to be back on top, both economically and in women’s volleyball…. The women overcame all hard attacks and rolled on the ground only momentarily. But falling was part of the success in the end. Many conservatives in the 1960s began to stress the sacrifice that the country had made in the Second World War as a cause for their current prosperity. In their opinion, it seemed inevitable to stumble once in order to be in a much better position in the future.

 

Continue reading →

NBC’s Gazzillion Dollar Olympic Investment: Is the Sky Falling or Is the Sky the Limit?

NBC Rio logo

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) aired the 1964 Tokyo Olympics Games in America, the first time events were broadcast live via satellite. With a 13-hour time difference between New York and Tokyo, the opening ceremonies of the Games on October 10 appeared on American televisions in the middle of the night. After that, NBC offered about an hour of highlights after prime time, fearful of eating into the ratings of their lucrative evening programming.

NBC didn’t get high marks for their coverage, and eventually lost the Games to ABC, which became the network of the Olympics over the late 60s and 1970s. Thanks to ABC’s coverage, the Olympics emerged as a premier marketing opportunity for sponsors and broadcasters. In America, the three networks fought furiously for broadcast rights.

NBC currently owns US broadcasting rights through 2032, having bid an incredible $7.65 billion dollars for the Summer and Winter Games through that period. With so much riding on the Games, not only for NBC, but obviously also for Brazil, the IOC and the athletes, it’s no surprise that commentators around the world are casting doom and gloom on the upcoming Rio Olympics. A doctor in Canada has even called for the postponement of the Games until the zika virus threat is deemed less of a risk.

It’s also possible that the entire track and field team from the Soviet Union will be banned from participating in the Rio Olympics due to state-sponsored doping. Michael Colangelo of the blog, The Fields of Green, recently wrote that the lack of Russian competition will strike a great blow on the success of the Rio Olympics, particularly on the viewer ratings of NBC. “The problem is that as doping seems to become more prolific — with Russia essentially running a doping program at a national level — bans and bad news could affect the television ratings this year and beyond.”

Colangelo went on to write, “It’s a balancing act and the only loser right now is NBC. As the Olympics get closer, the IOC and its partners will have to work to make sure that all parties’ investment in the games is worthwhile. That seems close to impossible right now.”

That was actually a concern in 1984. As you may recall, the United States and over 60 other countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, primarily due to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Four years later, 15 nations led by the Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics. Michael Payne, who wrote the fascinating book called “Olympic Turnaround“, said that the American Broadcasting Company paid a then-record $225 million for rights for the Summer Games in Los Angeles and the Winter Games in Sarajevo, and that ABC bean counters started shouting that the sky was falling when the boycott was announced.

Roone Arledge
Roone Arledge

 

And then stepped in ABC Sports President and Olympic broadcasting legend, Roone Arledge. Like Henry V in Shakespeare’s eponymous classic play, Arledge faced down the naysayers, according to Payne, and stated with conviction that the Los Angeles Games would be a moment of triumph.

By early 1984, ABC’s financial leaders were running scared about a potential ratings collapse due to the Soviet-led boycott, and attempted to renegotiate terms. Arledge argued that the Soviets had done them all a favor, as the boycott would only allow Americans to win even more gold medals. “They would not lose viewers, they would gain them.”

Arledge was right, ABC’s coverage of Los Angeles set new ratings records. From Los Angeles in 1984 onwards the Olympic Games began to have a dramatic effect on the US advertising market. More than half of the advertising available for all sports for all networks for the entire yea was spent on the Olympics over two weeks. “We’d not only captured the market, we’d suck it dry,” Roone Arledge observed.

Continue reading →

McDonald’s Guerilla Marketing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games

 

citi field not so clean venue
The home field of my New York Mets, CitiField, displays over 20 sponsors in this particular view. You wouldn’t see any ads in an Olympics venue.

For the International Olympic Committee, the “Clean Venue” policy has been inviolate. No advertisements or hint of commerce is allowed to be seen on or within the Olympic stadium. Not even the top global sponsors are allowed to show their logos in the stadium despite paying millions to market using the Olympic brand. They do so, somewhat ironically, because the Olympic brand, with the clean venue as a symbol, represents ideals beyond consumerism.

Olympic turnaroundAs Steve Jones of head of Coca Cola’s Marketing in the 1990s put it, “A clean field of play is an Olympic equity. One of your core assets. The field of play is an important branding space that you own. Own every inch of it! Sharing your branding space dilutes the Olympic brand. Don’t compromise your greatest opportunity to build brand power. There is no valid loss of revenue argument when the risk is loss of brand equity.”

Thus, the IOC aggressively protects the Olympic brand, and can at times seem obsessive. Michael Payne, author of the great sports marketing book, Olympic Turnaround, wrote about how McDonalds, a TOP Olympic sponsor, perhaps somewhat intentionally, snuck their logo into the eyesight of thousands, if not millions, during the Opening Ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. Payne, who was a member of the IOC’s marketing team, got a phone call just as the ceremonies were under way.

“Have you seen the broadcast image of the athletes coming over the ramp?” screamed the brand protection manager. “What are we supposed to do about the McDonald’s sign?”

I ran around the stadium to see the problem myself. There, as the athletes marched over the ramp, in the distance was a large elevated McDonald’s neon sign. It provided a perfect backdrop for each nation as they came into the stadium. The sign might have been in the distance, located by the temporary McDonald’s restaurant at the Olympic Park, but on television it looked like it was attached to the main stadium. The sign had to be switched off – and fast.

The McDonald’s restaurant was near the Olympic sponsor hospitality village. I called the IOC manager at the village, and told her to get over to the McDonald’s restaurant and find someone to turn off the lights. She got to the restaurant, by the time the athlete parade had reached the letter c, and Cambodia was stumbling down the ramp. She found it closed and locked up. Understandably, all members of staff were in the stadium watching the ceremonies.

“Then break in,” I yelled to the IOC manager – by now we were up to Denmark in the athletes’ parade, and there was no way for the television cameras to avoid the neon advertising sign. “They will arrest me”, she pleaded.

“They will arrest all of us if we do not get that sign switched off now.” so an IOC manager proceeded to break into a partner’s restaurant to get their sign switched off.”

There was a break in, the logo went dark, and the IOC apologized to McDonald’s for the break in, although it’s unclear how the lights of the logo were left on.

Now, I’m sure this happened. But I have looked closely at the video of the 1996 opening ceremonies in Atlanta, and I just don’t see the McDonald’s sign. Admittedly, this youtube is not a high resolution video.

Fortunately, i was saved by a reader who provided me with a photo of the shining Mickey D logo. Thank you tylerkochman!

McDonalds at 1996 Atlanta Games
Click on photo to go to source, and see photo 45 in the gallery.
Continue reading →

Can Japan Meet the Talent Demands in 2020? Hint: Demands Aren’t Being Met in 2016

manpower-talent-shortage-2016
From the 2016/2017 Manpower Talent Shortage Survey

Another study has revealed another issue in planning for Tokyo2020. According to a Japanese Sports Agency panel, there are concerns that Japan won’t have the necessary manpower to ensure drug testing is handled effectively and in a timely fashion.

According to a recently released report, Tokyo2020 will need approximately 200 analysts rotating in round-the-clock shifts every day during the Olympic Games, in order to complete an estimated 6,500 tests. Each test has to be completed within 24 hours of receipt of the sample.

Currently, there is only one lab in Japan that can conduct drug tests to the standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and they employee 15 analysts. Their turnaround time for a drug test is 10 days.

I have no doubt that Tokyo2020 will figure out how to efficiently and effectively process the required drug tests by the time the Tokyo Olympics roll around, but it will not be easy to find the talent. As a Human Resource professional working in Japan, I am fully aware of how fierce the war for talent is in this country. Manpower.com, in its most recent Talent Shortage Survey, announced that the country where employers are having the most difficulty filling roles is Japan, by far. In fact, Japan has been the most difficult country since 2010.

Japan, in comparison to other countries in Asia, has a significantly low level of English capability, which impacts all organizations in Japan that require involvement in international endeavors or global markets. The technical sales, managerial, IT, engineering or design skills may exist in Japan in abundance, but the inability to communicate efficiently in a common global language like English can often slow down the pace of cross-boundary projects. And one of the biggest cross-boundary projects to hit Japan, perhaps the biggest, will be the 2020 Olympics.

Right now, the number of people in the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) who can interact with members of the IOC and individual National Organizing Committees has got to be low – in other words, so much is dependent on the few people who can speak English.

In 2020, who will be the ones who will coordinate with all of the visiting national teams, the international press, the highly technical demands of the dozens of international sports federations, the thousands of foreign athletes, and the tens of thousands of foreign tourists that arrive en masse for a few weeks in July, 2016?

More interestingly, what innovative ideas will emerge in the coming four years that will help Japan meet the demanding requirements of Tokyo 2020? What technologies will emerge as game changing? What tweaks to hiring or immigration policies will be revealed?

The Olympics can be a wonderful opportunity for change and growth in Japan.

Continue reading →

Olympia Cigarettes: How the 1964 Tokyo Olympics Led to Increased Cases of Lung Cancer in Japan Today

Tokyo 64 Cigarettes
Magazine ad for Tokyo64 Cigarettes.

Ah, the Olympics – an international event that celebrates Man’s desire to achieve new heights, to hone the body and mind to a point close to perfection, for the simple love of competition and achievement.

And yet, what was one of the most successful product promotions related to the Olympics? That’s right. Cigarettes.

The Olympic Games, including the logo and its five interlocking rings, have been one of the powerful brands in the history of marketing. After all, what company or organization would not want to be affiliated with words like world peace, excellence, doing your best, comradery, teamwork, fair play. But it really wasn’t until the 1980s when the International Olympic Committee began taking control of its brand.Olympia cigarettes

Michael Payne is the author of a fascinating book on the marketing of the Olympics, called “Olympic Turnaround“. He wrote how cigarettes, game shows and hygiene products for example were being marketed via the Olympic brand, which created tension in the IOC as it was felt such products did not appropriately represent Olympic values. One of the more remarkable examples Payne cites is from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The tension between the Olympic values and commercial interests is long standing. One of the most successful licensed Olympic products ever produced, for example, was “Olympias”, a brand of cigarette. Produced from a mixture of Turkish and Greek tobacco, it was designed to generate funds to support the organization of the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Olympias generated over $1 million in revenues for the Organizing Committee.

Payne went on to provide another example in 1964, a clever promotion using the Olympic brand to further increase the spread of cigarette consumption.

The marriage between cigarettes and the Olympics was a popular promotional theme at the 1964 Games. A popular Japanese cigarette brand, “Peace”, ran a promotion where each package was sold with a numbered premium ticket. This entitled anyone drawing a winning ticket to claim a prize of a further 365 packs. Even back in the 1960s, marketers realized that the Olympic rings could draw consumers’ attention to a product. Every packet of “Peace” cigarettes, carried the Olympic emblem.

Peace Cigarettes

Did these campaigns have an impact? Below is a chart showing smoking prevalence among Japanese men and women. Look at the mid 1960s and you can see leaps in consumption between 1963 and 1965. In fact, it appears that smoking reached its highest rates, almost Olympian heights, around those times. And now the Japanese are paying for it as mortality rates due to lung cancer have peaked in the past 20 years. Fortunately, smoking consumption among women has stayed flat over the decades, and thus so has their risk to lung cancer.

cigarette consumption and lung cancer mortality rates
Age-standardized lung cancer mortality and smoking prevalence, Japan, 1950-2010. Source: World Health Organization

No gold medals here.

Continue reading →

How Technology Helps Us Count and Is Changing the Game

Wearable Devices_GPSports

In Major League Baseball today, entire stadiums are decked out with sensors so that the movement and speed of the baseball can be tracked real time the moment it leaves the pitcher’s hand, and the moment it comes into contact with the bat, to the moment it lands in a fielder’s glove or in the stands. (Click on link below for examples.)

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/94788780/v36825353/statcast-tracks-the-captivating-moments-of-the-lcs

Measuring health indicators are becoming the routine for health conscious people who wear consumer devices like Fitbit or UP. When I first wore my Microsoft Band, I appreciated learning about my heart rate while exercising but was surprised to learn how many calories I used while sleeping. (Around 350 to 400!)

At the organizational sports level, teams are using companies like GPSports, Catapult and Adidas to track the movements of their soccer, ice hockey or rugby players, primarily with an aim to understand the correlation of movement and injury. According to this New York Times article, the wearable devices for athletes, which is commonly a tracking device placed at the top of the back held in place by a compression shirt, provide data on the exact movements and conditions of a player. Presumably that data can be correlated to moments of injury, which is explained in greater depth in this Sports Illustrated article on how this data is used in ice hockey.

In the Age of Enlightenment, Europeans learned to better control their environment, and got a better picture of how much Man, not God, controlled one’s destiny. Of course, the scientific mind can get carried away with measurement. Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, developed machinery that could measure the degree to which a meeting was boring by counting the number of times a person fidgeted (perhaps an idea before its time!)

Frederick Winslow Taylor, credited with developing Scientific Management over 100 years Frederick-Winslow-Taylorago, would divide female party-goers into two sets (attractive and unattractive), and use his stopwatch to make sure he spent equal time with both.

Based on such dweebish behavior, it’s understandable people are ambiguous when faced with number-crunchers, particularly those calculating what might be considered incalculable – like a person’s morale, one’s decision-making ability, quality of service, or the return on investment of a training program.

But if truth be told,

Continue reading →