For the Olympic sponsors, the sporting event becomes a debacle

Beijing, Munich The Winter Olympics will begin with a grand opening ceremony in Beijing on Friday. But there is hardly any sign of a party atmosphere in the Chinese capital. The major sponsors such as Samsung or Visa only occasionally advertise the sporting event on digital boards. Otherwise, only posters from the organizer itself remind of the upcoming major event – and signs on the fences around the cordoned off hotels in Beijing, in which athletes and fellow travelers are shielded from the population so that they do not become infected with Corona.

For the companies that spend hundreds of millions of euros to advertise the Olympics, the Beijing event is a disappointment. “The Olympics have become so polarized around the world that the big international sponsors are basically just ducking their heads,” said Mark Dreyer, blogger and expert on sports in China and author of a book on the subject. Even within China, they were very reluctant to advertise.

The US government has sharply criticized China and accuses the government of serious human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority in western China’s Xinjiang province.

The USA has announced a diplomatic boycott of the games, and Australia, Japan and Germany are also not sending any government representatives to the sporting event. At a hearing in the US Congress, American Olympic sponsors such as Intel and Coca-Cola even had to publicly justify their support for the games in the People’s Republic.

Not a good environment for an advertising campaign. Alongside Toyota, Coca-Cola, Visa and Samsung, Allianz is one of the 13 top sponsors of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the first time. It is the only German company among the main sponsors. The Allianz logo will appear on TV broadcasts of the competitions around the world in the coming days.

Due to the criticism of the actions of the Chinese organizers, the corona policy and the treatment of athletes and media representatives, Allianz is watching the games, which will start in a few days, with suspense.

The controversial IOC boss Thomas Bach had already signed the partnership with Allianz boss Oliver Bäte in September 2018 at the Allianz headquarters in Munich. According to reports, around 400 million dollars are to flow to the IOC by the end of the contract in 2028.

Allianz hoped that the cooperation with the sports organization would result in a significantly higher profile, access to a younger target group and activities in social networks. Outside of the mass phenomenon of football, the Olympic Games are the most important platform for this, according to the company. “One of the reasons for our commitment to the IOC is that we also want to be perceived as a partner by the younger generation,” said Jean-Marc Pailhol, chief marketing officer at the time, to the Handelsblatt.

The IOC’s tainted image of doping allegations, fraud and nepotism was already an issue in the negotiations that led to a contract being signed after only nine months.

In general, nothing has changed in the original approach, according to Allianz today. As a sponsor, the values ​​of the Olympic movement – excellence, friendship and respect – and the sporting achievements of the athletes are paramount. “Our commitment remains intact,” said a spokesman for the company.

The risk of promotions going wrong is growing

For Allianz, which has had a presence in China for more than a century, the brand’s games should bring more exposure within the country as well. The Chinese market plays an important role in the global growth strategy. In November, for example, the company took full ownership of the life insurance subsidiary Allianz China Life after taking over the 49 percent stake held by the previous joint venture partner, Citic Trust. This makes Allianz the first completely independent foreign life insurer to emerge from a partnership with a local partner.

But even advertising within China is becoming a difficult undertaking for companies like Allianz. On the one hand, there is a growing risk that advertising campaigns will go wrong. In the past few months, there have been an increasing number of cases involving Western companies whose statements or advertising campaigns have led to shitstorms in the People’s Republic, including H&M, Adidas and Intel. As recently as December, German automaker Daimler was heavily criticized on social media for emphasizing the Chinese model’s narrow eyes with make-up in a commercial. He was accused of serving Western prejudices.

On the other hand, due to the media world that has become global, it is no longer so easy for multinational companies to address messages exclusively to a Chinese audience without the rest of the world noticing. “The Olympic sponsors can no longer carry out these huge campaigns in China because everyone will notice,” says sports expert Dreyer. “The whole world will be broadcast: Why are you doing this when they are under so much attack from Washington?”

The extremely restrictive handling of the Chinese government to combat corona cases has also met with a lot of misunderstanding internationally. China is pursuing a zero-case strategy in the fight against the virus and has largely sealed off the People’s Republic from abroad for two years.

For the Olympics, Beijing has devised a “bubble” system to seal off those arriving from abroad from the rest of the population. As a result, significantly fewer journalists report on the sporting event because of the strict entry rules. China is accused of obstructing free reporting and treating the athletes in an adverse way.

Hope the criticism dies down

Despite the strict precautionary measures, as of Friday, 36 cases of infection had already been registered in the “bubble” in which China keeps athletes and fellow travelers separate from the rest of the population. Demands to postpone the games are being observed very carefully at Allianz. There is a lively exchange with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which have been mobilizing against the games in China for weeks. Of course, Allianz, like all sponsors, is committed to respecting human rights, according to the company.

The hope of the sponsors is that the criticism will die down once the competitions have started. The Olympic Games have been turning into a major media event for years. The fact that no spectators are allowed on site for pandemic reasons was already accepted by the organizers as a necessary evil at the summer games in Tokyo a year ago. Allianz believes that the “power of images” will outshine much of the sporting excellence this time that was previously criticized.

As with Allianz, the sponsorship contracts are usually concluded for several years. It is already becoming apparent that the games after 2022 are likely to bring less excitement in advance. The 2024 Summer Games will take place in Paris, two years later in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in winter and in Los Angeles in 2028.

More: The current blog – news, voices and moods about the Olympics.