|
When you come to the sponsors' village in the centre of Torino, there's no doubt who paid the big bucks to link with the Winter Olympics. Eleven companies have paid 800 million dollars to the International Olympic Committee for Torino and for the 2008 summer games in Beijing. Beyond worldwide rights to use the Olympic symbol,one of the privileges is having the president of the I.O.C. open each company's pavilion. Jack Rogan makes no apologies for the corporate side to these games.
Jack Rogan: With the money of the corporate work nowadays we are gonna invest a lot in the developing countries ,we can build infrastructure , train the athletes, send them, equip them, accommodate them. So it's really making sport universal.
The sponsors are not allowed to stick up huge advertising boards at the venues. So for main sponsor OMEGA, part of its commitment is providing the official time-keeping, even the starter pistol. But CEO Nick Hayek likes to point out, OMEGA is also paid to provide the data for all the venues.
Nick Hayek: We are a partner, without us, Olympics will not happen. And not for the money, for the know-how and the techology.
Official sponsor Mcdonald 's chose this Winter Olympics to announce it will finely start putting nutritional information on all packaging.
Richard Pinder: I think Mcdonald's, the world largest seller of salads now, will see their association with a sporting event. It's crucial to their reinvention as a brand. Coca-Cola trying to prove it's no longer an American business selling one particular item. And now it has a range of 40 drinks, more about water than it is about suger.
So it's Coke's Powerade as the official sports drink. And Coke's water brand is everywhere. Forget about finding a Pepsi. And for Coke, it's also about selling official badges and lots of them. Amercian pin collecters have been swapping in the Coca pavilion since the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.
Edwin Schneider: You've come all this way to trade pins. Just to trade pins.Oh,, I'll, I'll catch the the events in the interim, too, you know...But, just to trade pins, basically..
One of the main worries at major sporting events is so-called ambush marketing - companies cashing in on the games without paying up first. Officals here have made sure only Visa Cards are used at venues and that only Kodak is used for every ID picture and for every X-Ray taken of the injured athletes.
Jim Boulden: But just to make sure the Italian government made it a criminal offence for any company other than the sponsor to associate themselves with these games. Jim Boulden,CNN,Torino.
|