Ep 11: Marketing Playbook for Major Sporting Events

After the 2024 Summer Olympics have wrapped up, the United States will soon be hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. So, in this episode, the 5 & Rise team discuss the impact of major events like the Olympics on marketing strategies. They cover how large events influence both local and national communities, and examine emerging trends that marketers should be aware of. Key topics include the importance of building community engagement on social media, the shift towards athlete-centered campaigns, and the strategic planning required for events like the Olympics and World Cup. 

The conversation also highlights the role of humor in advertising, the changing landscape of viewership with platforms like Peacock, and the opportunities for local businesses to capitalize on these events.

00:00 Introduction to Today's Episode
00:50 The Impact of the Olympics on Marketing
01:17 Athlete-Centered Campaigns
02:17 Humor and Fun in Olympic Ads
03:19 The Role of Streaming Services
04:56 Consumer Behavior and Urgency
06:27 Social Media and FOMO
13:20 Local and National Marketing Opportunities
15:55 Planning for Future Events
21:47 Real-Time Marketing Strategies
26:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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We’ve worked across a wide range of industries, from real estate to nonprofits, tech startups to sports, and everything in between. Wherever you are, we’ll meet you there, bring our strategic know-how to the table, and rise together.

And hey, we’re not just keeping up with the trends—we’re setting them. Join the journey.

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Transcript

0:00

On today's episode of Off the Record Marketing Deconstructed, we have a great conversation about events, um, the Olympics, what impact that large events have on local communities and national communities, and upcoming trends that we should start planning for. It goes back to community. Like, we preach to our clients about the importance of building that on social media. as simple as having two posts ready to approve if they win or lose, you know. Why work in competition when you can actually work in collaboration and maybe you have different. They were prepared for the Cubs to win and had the logistics in place to be able to get exactly what they wanted ahead of time. So, I think we should talk about today some of the impacts that. We've seen with the Olympics and viewership and some of the ads and some of the things that were going on because I think there's a good bit of information from a marketing perspective to delve into. Thoughts on that? Um, I would definitely say one thing that I noticed was I believe that brands are going more athlete centered than they ever have. I felt like almost every brand that was on consistently, uh, in, in commercials, uh, or in the, in the break action, um, areas, they all had athletes in them and nobody was doing a campaign that was. necessarily wasn't centered around an athlete. I felt like, uh, I also felt like there was a much wider array of athletes. It wasn't just all basketball or the gymnasts or the swimmer that was, you know, returning from last, last time. You know, there was, there was campaigns with the women's rugby players that were, um, people, you know, just taking advantage of, uh, some of those players being kind of big personalities off the field and creating their own buzz. And, uh, that was, that was very interesting to see this time around. And I felt like there was more like humor incorporated. I don't, I'm not the biggest Olympic and sports fan as compared to you guys, but I felt like even in those ads, there was a little bit more fun element, more humor. Getting a little bit away from the product. Obviously the product was still, um, placed in there, but like having that sense of humor and that sense of like fun bringing in not only the element of the Olympic and just, uh, entertainment perspective, um, but also incorporating the athletes personalities. And obviously that's one of the most important parts, but, um, I feel like brands across the board did a really good job of making it, you know, Um, even playing field. Oh, and we know it's going to be big brands, right, that dominate the market during that time. Just, I mean, it's similar to the Super Bowl, right, where you, you know, you either have big brands or you have startups with lots of funding behind them. And that makes some sense, right? But I think, I think Peacock, uh, really kind of changed the game this time around, right? Because you basically had 24 7. I mean, you could watch the, the same event three times over the course of a day just based on the way that Peacock was streaming nonstop right in their prime time in Paris or whatever they called it, you know, and, and, and the time changes and all that. So I thought, you know, the, the, the, the, the access somewhat to, to the Olympics for the consumer was very, very different this time. I mean, they made it. That prime time in Paris piece really made it, um, kind of must watch TV. Even if you already knew the results, even if it had happened, you know, whatever time local in Paris, but it was 9 AM here or six at whatever it was. Well, you can watch it live while it was happening or you can watch it later as if it were live and happening, because when NBC was showing the opening ceremony. I actually thought when they were showing it at like 8 p. m. in the evening that it was live, but it wasn't, because I know somebody that had actually seen it earlier in the day when it was actually happening in nighttime over there. So the fact that you could watch it at any point in time I think that viewership increased. I think more people were watching things. And I think that also had a large impact on the number of people that were seeing the ads that were coming out. Well, and from the piece that I thought was fascinating on the consumer side of it was, you know, prime time television, right? And every network has their kind of prime time and their days and all of that, right? And it's. You know, it's great to sit down and watch, I don't know, whatever, Young Sheldon on a Wednesday night or whatever, you know, whatever it is, but most people don't do that anymore, right? They, they, they, they have their Hulu live, or they record it, or you know, whatever, and they watch it later. But the thing about that is, there's no sense of urgency to come back and watch it, other than your own kind of anticipation of it. Whatever that show is in this case, you know, if you miss the semifinals of whatever there is a sense of urgency, right? Because you know that tomorrow is going to be the final and you need to watch it tonight. And so like, so even if it was earlier in the day and you're just watching kind of the replay at seven o'clock at night, eight o'clock at night on, on that Wednesday. There was more of a sense of urgency that takes away, from a consumer perspective, time, uh, on other, whether it be social media, right, on other shows, right? Maybe someone's not going to watch The Young Sheldon this week and they're going to wait a couple weeks and watch four episodes in one week because they've got to watch the Olympics tonight, or whatever it is. You know, they're not, whereas someone might be on their phone after dinner and after kind of winding down at 8, 9 o'clock. scrolling through social media because they're just trying to pass time or whatever. And who cares? They can watch whatever show tomorrow. Now they're locked in on the Olympics and they're not scrolling their social feed like they were, right? I mean, that's, it completely changes if you're interested. And, you know, Cassie, it may be a different, you know, conversation, but, But I think for me on the urgency side, like, If I wasn't watching it, then I was hearing about it on social, you know, all the Snoop Dogg memes, like all those things and it's like Well, what is happening now? I want to go because I is having that FOMO like I'm missing out and If I wasn't watching it I wanted to and if I was watching it like I was scrolling on social media to see what was trending Because someone was always talking about it and that's where the The non big brand impact increase, or that, that, that impact is more significant, right? For our clients, for other smaller businesses or midsize businesses who wouldn't be advertising on NBC during the Olympics will know, you know, now that impact is our timelines are flooded with this additional content or, or users are taken away from that during a normal kind of social media scrolling time, right? That, that now I lose more time. eyeballs as a brand. Um, so it does, it does flow down. Yeah. And so then it poses the question, what do I need to do to, do I get in on that trend or do I keep going the same trajectory that I've been going? And I think it's different for every brand, but I think that there were a lot of opportunities to get in on the conversation during the Olympics. That's a good point. It does become more of a trendiness opportunity as opposed to I guess what we would call like the evergreen kind of status quo of advertising. Bring out your personality. Get in on the memes. You know, there are so many reels like comparing gymnastics to, you know, 1920 versus now and it's like, you know, me doing this versus the experts. So just a way to promote your brand. But in that like timely and like funny way. So there's opportunity there. And I feel like the Olympics is one of those, uh, one of those opportunities that could be an opportunity. It could be a problem depending on how adaptive you are, but brands have to move faster than ever in that, in those three weeks, because you only have so much time and you only have, you know, what, what was popular or what was noteworthy. Right before the start of the games could be completely different. Last Olympics, for example, if your entire thing was around Simone Biles, last time around, you definitely had to make some changes or maybe you didn't play certain ones because it felt differently. Now, because of how she had, you know, had her situation, um, and I feel like that's just one example, but everything changes completely throughout the Olympics, depending on how performances are going. Not only that, you have to look at it from the perspective too. And we're talking, you know, from summer to summer Olympics, but the COVID. Well, well, they postponed it a year. Yeah. Yeah. And so then he ran into the whole COVID aspect and there was no live audience there and how they were filming it and how they were broadcasting, which is much different than how it was this time. And so I think that there was also, I don't know, I feel like there was just a lot more buzz around what was going on and people were more excited about it and they were more, um, I There was more patriotism around it, right? And I think that that was represented in Not only the Olympics and the way it was broadcast and shown and the accessibility that we had to, but also in the advertising. And to your point, Cassidy, I think that as people are looking at things from a social perspective, you can get in on that from, you know, how you keyword, right. And how you caption. And if you want to be seen when people are looking up things that are going on in the Olympics from a social standpoint, then how can I. make my content or the ads that I'm doing more accessible as people are searching those things. And so what am I putting in my caption? What kind of, um, hashtags or keywords or things am I looking at? Right. And I think as Kirk, you referenced too, how we have to move fast on what we're doing, not only for our clients and the content that we're putting out for our clients, but, Think about those people that were looking at advertising during the Olympics four years ago, right? And how things have changed over those four years. And so you may have been planning all of that time, but there's so much that's going on during that you want to get in on, even if your ads have been sitting ready to go in the last, So, right, Simone Biles example, I think is a great one. And even more in this Olympics, uh, the, the break dancer from was Australia or New Zealand, and that was a super trendy thing to hop on, on social media. And I completely understand why, and I'm not saying it was right or wrong. It was the first time it was the first time, right? Like you see that, that kind of contrast in styles and things, but I think it was just, uh, Um, uh, earlier this week where she did an interview and she was like, guys, like I'm a human being, like, you know, it kind of like the person behind it. And that's a great point. I mean, it's, it's in that vein of Simone Biles, but then there's also the patriotism piece that you're referring to, which is like the competition of, you know, seeing that, seeing that compared to the U S style and it's like night and day, right? And like, so like you kind of jump on those things and you try to move quickly. Right. But there's, there's the strategy beforehand. There's the strategy during, there's a strategy after, and all those things. Have to take, uh, you know, there's got to be thought and effort put into those. And sometimes we are trying to move quickly. Right. When you're trying to keep up with the consumers who are totally locked in, you know, maybe there's, maybe there's a mistake, maybe you've got to give it a second thought. Maybe it changes, you know, what you do in that moment might change in two weeks after, you know, a break dancer does an interview and it's like, you guys are being a little mean, you know? Well, and that can pose. It could be a great thing that you hopped on that trend, or it could be a bad thing. You could go viral in the wrong way. And it's like that, you have to be prepared for that because there's so many opportunities for content to go really great or really bad. And having that, um, backup and that like PR like element to after the fact is just as important as like the strategy beforehand. I think. On the, on the other side, we're kind of talking from a national perspective. Um, think about opportunities from a local perspective, talking about I think especially for us being in the Indianapolis area, I think there were more eyes on the swimming and the diving competition from a local perspective because the Olympic trials were held here and there were so much fanfare here in Indianapolis around those trials and coming from Carmel, Indiana. All the signs went up that said Swim City because we had so many Olympians from Carmel or that swam at Carmel or that were part of the Carmel Swim Club. Um, you could say the same for those that are swimming in Ann Arbor, um, at the University of Michigan where Michael Phelps did a lot of swimming. Because so you could jump on those local trends, knowing that there are more eyes from a local perspective that are watching those events in the Olympics because they're vested in them. And I think that's a good segue into, you know, here in just a couple of years, the U. S. is hosting the world cup, right? Which is. I don't, I don't have numbers either way, but I, it's probably one a and one B in terms of the Olympics and the men's world cup. I mean, it's, it's soccer is a, is a global sport, right? And the, to the, to your point about local. So, you know, that's, it's three different countries hosting it, right? And we're, we have matches going on all over the, the, the United States, Canada, and Mexico over the course of, I don't know, a month or whatever it is. And they're bigger cities, but even still, right? Like the opportunity for clients and, and, or for, for brands, companies, what have you, in certain parts of the country when you have, I don't even want to take a guess at how many millions of dollars of economic development coming into those specific areas and, and eyeballs on, on those areas. I mean, that's, that's, there's opportunity there. We just have to go back to that like strategy piece of, you know, maybe it depends on the teams that are playing in that area. Maybe it depends on what time the games, you know, there's all kinds of factors, but it's, it's a significant opportunity for brands in the U S even again, with that funneling down piece. Small businesses, local businesses, brick and mortars. And I think it's important to learn from the different events, right? And then how can you get ahead of what that next event is going to be or what that next trend is going to be? And we can't necessarily know what those trends are going to be, but can we be part of maybe helping set those trends or putting our clients in the situation to succeed or be part of, or start thinking about those things strategically now? Even though it's two years away. Absolutely. I think we need to be. I think that's how we're giving the best value to the people that we work with. So I think that, I think it's important. And I think that, I think that businesses need to spend some time thinking about that too, as far as, um, what kind of messaging do they want to put out then? What is the difference going to be between their ideal client today and what that ideal client might look like for a month you know, in two years for a month out of the year for the special event and make sure that we're able to capitalize on, um, those dollars, right. That could be coming into our business. So I think there's a lot of different perspectives to look at events and, and how we can use those from, from marketing, but how we can do that to prosper also from a business standpoint. There, I mean, there's watch parties for restaurants, right? And, I mean, wild idea, someone take this, right? But, like, you know, you're, you're, uh, restaurant, sports bar, whatever. And I think Houston is one of the sites, right. Just pulling one out of a hat. Right? Okay. So now you've got your watch parties for each of the games that, you know, you're hosting in the, in the pool play or whatever. And, and maybe you've got food specials or drink specials, right. Of, of, of meals, beers, alcohol, whatever from those countries. Right? And I like. That, and you know what, you can market, you start marketing that. Well, you can start building collaborations with the businesses that are around the area, right? Why work in competition when you can actually work in collaboration and maybe you have different watch parties at different places, right? Like you can have that progressive watch party based on the team that you're supporting or, um, the country or the flavors or like all of those things. Right. And then. You know, think about like the opportunity for merchandise and, and, um, gifts and, uh, hotels and like all of those things. Right. But from the larger piece of that puzzle in the area, from a marketing perspective to that mom and pop shop, um, cause you're going to have people coming in that want to visit and want to see where they're at. And, you know, And people just come also for the party. They don't necessarily come or can't get tickets to the event. Airbnbs, rentals, musicians, you know, like, like there it's, there's opportunity of, of, of plenty, right? Small, medium, large businesses. Yeah. So start planning now, start thinking about things now. The creativity people are going to use to find every advantage they have. Um, just to get a little bit more business, you know, it could be like you said, having watch parties and maybe that place switches the food trucks that they have coming in every day to cater to, Oh, the Argentinian fans are going to be here today with their game. Well, I, you know, there are a food, a food truck that brings that food that caters toward that crowd versus as the next game, the next day is a French, French game or an English game or. You know, wherever the teams might be from same with, you know, maybe the population of the city you're in, once again, you're maybe not, uh, a location of the actual games, but you happen to know that there's a large, uh, you know, Ecuadorian population in your city, maybe you, you know, cater toward that for that week and say, Hey, we're having big, big events. Um, you know, there's just a lot of different things you can do. Going into it. So, and how do you plan your social media? Right? How do you plan the content that you're putting out? What can you start thinking about now for content that's going to be shared during the event and the time leading up to the event and the time after the event, right? You're a, I like, I would ask you and not enough to put you on the spot, but like, you know, I'm thinking of like a hotel or an Airbnb or something. Right. And, and how do you, in those. Local places where it's like, people are booking now. Exactly. So, so like, cause you want to promote, if you're, if you're the, the, if you're doing the watch party pieces, the food trucks or whatever, like you should be promoting that months ahead of time. Oh yeah. Cause it goes back to community. Like we preach to our clients about the importance of building that on social media, on email lists, on their website, but that can happen in real life too. Still. Like that's what marketing used to be. And now like it's the balancing act of both digitally and that traditional in person market is still there. We just have to go back to it because we were kind of turned away from that during the COVID years. So now that we're transitioning back to that in person element, that community is just as important there as it is on social media. It goes both ways. So creating that in person usually. Is like more, there's more pieces to it. There's more elements. Um, but either way, there's still that strategy. There's still that plan. There's still that element of thinking ahead of time. And that's kind of what we try to pose to our clients is that we can work ahead of the game. Like if, you know, we're starting to plan for 2025 now, now's the time to get those plans, whether it's budget or social media strategy, it goes both ways. I think I have, I think I have an awesome example that is maybe, I might be a little bit biased, but so Cubs fan, right? Chicago Cubs and, and, and I'm, I don't remember the exact timing of everything, but it goes to game seven, right? You know that there's going to be a team that wins the World Series in game seven, right? And this is pre COVID, but it kind of speaks to your point, which is, I think it was. It was a Budweiser that had the commercial with Harry Carey doing the voiceover and it was like, they like AI generated his voice and they even had, uh, they even had footage in that commercial of bars in Wrigleyville around Wrigley Field celebrating after they won. They put it out, they put this, not only did they get the footage, they edited out whatever didn't send off to the networks or whoever and they aired this within an hour. But they didn't develop that whole commercial in that time. They were prepared for the Cubs to win and had had the logistics in place to be able to get exactly what they wanted ahead of time. Now that's the scale of that is massive. And I'm not saying that's for everybody, but it's that type of idea of like, they had everything that they needed beforehand. And they put out this incredible commercial that for these Cubs fans who have this insane connection to their team and 106 years and all that, I mean, meant. It was a lifetime worth of fandom and it was so touching to them and they were prepared for that. Oh, I mean, along the same vein, we were just talking about this the other day, but Nike had how many commercials prepared for if the, the U S women and men team one, uh, for basketball, they had numerous ones that I saw that obviously they did beforehand and we're only going to be usable. Did they win? So, you know, sometimes it's. And that one would have been very sour in the mouth of Cubs fans to be like, well, look at the work we put out if you won. But I always think about that too. Like the merchandise, right? When you're going, like when you're going to win, they have to, they have to print shirts and merchandise and like hats and sweatshirts and all of the things for both teams. wondering if one's gonna win or the other, right? Or at least have a few things made and then go into production. Like you have to plan for either one of those things. So it's like, start thinking about it now. Versus like you're going to be too late three months before the event. Yeah. And again, the scale is different, right? The scale is different for, uh, uh, you know, a restaurant in whatever city, a sports bar, whatever. But that, but that, that, that concept is kind of still there because. But the planning piece is the same. But well, and, and even beyond social media, let's say that there Ecuadorian population in whatever city that you're in, in the United States, middle America, whatever. Yeah. That's great. And have your watch party, but what happens when Ecuador loses, you know, like, and, and how do you respond to that? How do you, um, uh, promote that? Right. Like, like what what's right. And what's wrong. And I'm not saying that's not me giving an answer. That's just me saying like, there are still two outcomes that you have to account for from a logistic standpoint with your business, as well as promoting it after the fact. How do I pick them up when they've lost? And how do I celebrate them, with them, when they've won? I mean, as far as like social media goes, it could be as simple as having two posts ready to approve. If they win or lose, you know, we celebrate because we are blank. Or we just won, come celebrate with us. You know, somebody who might be not, maybe didn't go to the watch party and they watched it at home with friends, but they're like, there is a place that's celebrating specifically for us. Ecuador just won. We're going to keep the doors open an extra three hours to celebrate. That's one sentence, one sentence. It doesn't like, you don't have to throw a graphic together. You could take a picture of the bar, you know, you could take a picture of fans, like celebrating the flag, the soccer crest for that country. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be this curated thing. Like again, like community is built through both. Like you can have both, both the curated concepts and the in the moment, like come join us. We're so excited to see you and celebrate with you. They, the community piece. And if someone says about fault, like if, so they, they lose, right. It was such a great night. We laughed, we cried, right. We made them like, and that's a dramatic version of it, but it's the same thing. Right. Like we're proud Ecuadorians or whatever. Right. It's, yeah, it's, it's a similar concept. I think it's important to think about all of these things, right? When you're putting together your strategy and when you're putting together your plans. So that you're taking into account what, from a marketing standpoint, we have to look at who do our clients market to and what's going to impact them tomorrow and what's going to impact them a year from now or two years from now. Right. If we know these things are coming. We can start planning ahead of time. And I think that it comes down to that. And, and, and I think it all kind of comes back to, everything comes back to, I think, building relationships and building that community feeling around all of these things. and all of the things that we're trying to promote. So, Go World Cup! Is that the way you would say it, Kirk? Go World Cup? No, I'm just seeing, uh, what's his name, Rob from, uh, Parks and Rec. Oh. With the NFL hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, just go soccer. This is a segue here. Have you thought more about your trip? Kirk's the resident. and he's trying to figure out his road trip to get to as many games as possible. Is it going to happen? It's going to be KC or Toronto, probably, but And you're only going to do one city? We'll see what the wall looks like. Yeah. I didn't get to ask for a raise. Yeah. Can you, um, don't forget to ask for time off. Yeah. Can you put it in your calendar, please? We might have a lot of marketing to do around the event. Let's see who our clientele is. Maybe we should pick up some clients in the cities. Right? Because I always say, like, most of our clients are not here where we are. They're around the country. And so, maybe we need to start looking ahead at clients in those locations that we want to be in at that time, right? Kurt's trying to expense his World Cup. Write it off. If you ask for a company credit card, we're definitely going to hit that label. Yeah, exactly. We hope you enjoyed today's podcast. For more information on Five and Rise, you can find us at five, the number five, and rise. com, or follow us on social media at Five and Rise. Join us for our next episode, subscribe to our podcast channel, and also subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks, and we'll see you next time.