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The Olympics - Branding on a Global Stage

by Susan Gunelius on July 9th, 2008

Today at Brandcurve we have a guest post from brand developer and designer (and one of my favorite bloggers) Prescott Perez-Fox.  You can read more about Prescott at the end of this post.  Without further ado, following is Prescott’s view on branding and the Olympic Games. 

Next month, all eyes will be on Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Olympics are a time for the nations of the world, in spite of their differences and animosities, to come together in the celebration of sport. While sport is still the focus, we have to acknowledge how the Olympics have become the World Cup cum Super Bowl cum Grand Championships of commerce, construction, planning, politics, and more recently, of design and branding.

It’s no longer sufficient for a nation to host an Olympiad, they must embody the games. The host city must be welcoming and accommodating for thousands of athletes and spectators, not to mention the billions of television viewers. All these eyeballs mean that design is at the forefront. Branding the Olympics is the act of using design to create a unique experience. To attach thoughts and feelings to those specific games, and remind generations to come what it means to represent your country overseas.

Olympics branding is ripe with symbolism. Every city and nation that hosts the games carries with it centuries of history and culture. The arts, music, and local sports of the host nation influence the designs, as do traditional colours, flags, iconography, flora and fauna. For example, Beijing’s Olympic logo is largely red. Yes, red is the colour of the Chinese flag, but it’s also the color associated with luck. Chinese brides often marry in red dresses and it has been a national color since ancient times. In this case, it’s also a reference to the Chinese chop, or seal, used to endorse checks and documents, as well as a sort of eastern family crest. The 2004 games in Athens also featured a logo packed with symbolism in the form of a crown of Olive branches. The Olive is a symbolic tree of Athens, and the crown is a symbol that goes back to the ancient games and Hellenic traditions. You see, it’s not simply a matter of “does our city have mountains”, although physical features like rivers often come into play.

Beijing 2008 logo, red all over

Athens 2004, three millennia in the making

A Greek athlete, dressed in Greek national colors and bearing the Athens 2004 logo, carries the Olympic torch and several Olive branches.

But creating an Olympic brand is not simply a matter of picking which symbols to highlight. Because of the global nature of the games, caution must be taken to ensure that none of the designs clash with or offend other cultures. Any local naming must be run through a translator to avoid the embarrassment suffered by advertising in the past (remember the original name for Coca-Cola in China, which translated as “bite the wax tadpole” or the infamous Chevy Nova, which didn’t play well in Spanish-speaking countries). Designs must be inoffensive, but also eye-catching. And with so many planners and politicians involved, every design is sure to have its critics. London’s identity for the 2012 games opened the eyes of the world and heralded a new era of public scrutiny for large-scale design projects. The controversial design was recently revised amid the almost-ubiquitous hatred for the logo and graphic scheme.

The original London 2012 logo, and the updated Union Jack version

These concerns are exaggerated because of the sheer scale of the Olympics games. The logo itself is likely to appear on merchandise and products in stores on every continent. Global TV coverage means that we’ll be seeing the graphics and animations constantly during those weeks. And for those of us lucky enough to attend the games in person, we’ll be surrounded by signage, staff in uniform, and all manner of graphical bricker-brack. Even the architecture itself, newly constructed for the games, will be folded into this giant mass of branding. Creating a cohesive, attractive, and enduring brand to unify all this is no small feat. In the case of Beijing’s identity, designer Min Wang recently gave insight to Communication Arts magazine about his process. He and his team of designers worked for a rather hurried five weeks to create the candidate materials, but spent the next seven years expanding the designs to all the various media formats and deliverables.

Like many sports teams, each Olympiad features a mascot. The concept of Olympics mascots dates back to the mid 20th century, with such lovable mascots as the Misha, the bear of Moscow 1980 and Sam, the Eagle of Los Angeles 1984. Mascots have become more abstract since that time, and have even multiplied. Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympiad will feature 3 mascots, while Beijing is checking in with 5! (Funny story about the Beijing mascots, they were recently blamed for the earthquakes, and other disasters!)

Vancouver 2010 mascots

Beijing 2008 mascots

The modern Olympics began in 1896, but this mad-dash for branding only began recently. Before we welcomed in the era of global branded media, the Olympics were a low-key sporting event. The Olympics were the brand, the host city was merely the rotating site of the festivites. And each Olympiad passed into history with little note, other than which records had been broken. These days the Olympic brands must be immortal. We are sure to forget the names and faces of the athletes, but we’ll remember the games, and which city hosted them. Just remember years past - the rings were the primary symbol, and each of the sports were given a universal figure icon, in the style of airport indicators. I’d like to think this all started back in 1992 when Barcelona sprung into action with a Joan Miro-inspired program.

Barcelona 1992, jumping for joy

But has it all gone overboard? With all the logistical concerns that go into hosting a game, wouldn’t it be nice for the administrators of each candidate city to concentrate on the bid’s credentials, and not it’s shine. Graphics evolve, as do every other artform, but would it not be simpler to attach a more consistent identity to the Olympics, agnostic of host country or city? Yes, I suppose it would. Unfortunately, media and design have too much momentum to stop now. Just as our athletes will continue to break records, so will our designers. The people crave design, and I am not about to deprive them of it. And maybe one day, I as a designer might get the chance to compete for this project, the Olympics of branding.

Prescott Perez-Fox is a brand developer and designer in Brooklyn, NY. He’s never been much of a synchronised swimmer, but does play rugby, which is no longer an Olympic sport. Read more from Prescott on his blog, http://www.perezfox.com.

Images: Vancouver2010.com, London2012.com, en.beijing2008.cn, Wikipedia.org, Designweek.co.uk, smh.com.au, olympics.blogs.nytimes.com

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