Challenger brands are beating Olympic sponsors at their own game

We’ve seen a fair bit of reporting around the brilliant fact that with 2024’s ‘Equality Olympics’, gender parity on the field of play has finally been reached.

The road to equality has been long. Even though women have been able to compete since 1900, it took until 2012 for all Olympic sports to permit female representation, but we’ve got there.

And with female athletes powering much of the Olympic marketing blitz we’re seeing currently, I thought I’d use this month’s column to look at another way the playing field is being levelled – the growing opportunities for challenger brands and non-Olympic Partner (TOP) sponsors to capitalise on the halo effect of an Olympic association.

As the ways to reach fans, viewers and consumers continue to evolve, there have never been more options for brands to enter into a relationship with the Olympics in some way, shape or form, particularly if your brand has an endorsement relationship with an athlete. That’s thanks to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) recent relaxation of stringent Rule 40.

Created to protect the rights of official Olympic sponsors, Rule 40 at the same time severely limited the ability of athletes supported by non-TOP sponsors to capitalise on peak moments of visibility and thus commercial opportunity arising around the Games.

Following the threat of legal action by athletes in the UK and Germany, who claimed guidelines on Rule 40 were anti-competitive, the IOC recently amended the rules to allow athletes more freedom to acknowledge their sponsors during the Games, subject to prescribed principles.

For non-TOP brands looking to capitalise on their endorsements, it’s now theoretically easier to activate around the Olympics in compelling ways, particularly since modern athletes have social media followings on a par with the broadcast and cable television reach of years gone by.

If I were a TOP sponsor, paying upwards of $200m for the pleasure, it’s fair to say I’d be looking very closely at what these whippersnapper advertisers can now achieve.

Founder of eco-football boot manufacturer Sokito, Jake Hardy, echoes this sentiment, this, telling me: “Athletes in general are a lot more savvy about building up their social channels and creating organic content, so overall [the relaxation of Rule 40] seems a good opportunity for both athletes and challenger brands to benefit from the Olympic effect.”

One caveat from Hardy: the inevitable competition among unofficial sponsors means brands need to be ever more creative and culturally connected in their activations if they’re to stand out.

TikTok, in particular, presents a real opportunity to cut through, if only for a moment. Take relative newcomer to the luxury category, 10-year old fashion brand Jacquemus and its adorable ‘#grandpacore’ post featuring its bags as hurdles. This from a brand with no official sponsorship links at the Games, but nonetheless cleverly riding the first ‘#TikTokOlympics’ wave.

Hardy agrees, pointing out how the platform is ideal for storytelling and sharing behind-the-scenes insights, sticky content which traditional platforms can’t offer. This effect is only multiplied if there’s an athlete endorsement in the mix.

“With the right athlete tie-up and creative content strategy in place, there’s huge potential for smaller brands to grow brand awareness and drive traffic to their channels,” Hardy tells me.

Little surprise then that savvy TikTok invested in an official partnership with Team GB and Paralympics GB, a win-win that involves bespoke content creation workshops run by the platform for athletes to develop their social media skills. This training is maximising their ability to create viral videos (and thus their appeal to brands), grow their followings and, of course, encourage support for the team.

Dream big

As well as a healthy dose of creativity and social nous, Hardy also reminds niche brands looking to leverage major sporting events through endorsements of the importance of authenticity. Everything from the message, the choice of athlete, their input and the setting. Both authenticity and brand purpose are needed if your activation is going to fly with your audience.

For Sokito, these elements worked in sync when the brand chose Nigeria’s national football captain, William Troost-Ekong, to debut their Scudetta boots made from bio-based materials, at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations. A spot of serendipity added the icing to the cake.

“From Troost-Ekong’s late call up to the squad to being named player of the tournament, it was an incredible story and one that resonated with fans,” Hardy explains.

It’s not only social media lowering entry barriers for brands. This Olympics is the first time ad spots have been available to buy programmatically, allowing smaller brands to compete in the same arena as the world’s largest advertisers.

Brands need to wake up to the true value of women’s sport

An exciting point of note for those of us interested in the unique market position of women’s sports: one ad-buying agency is now working with NBCUniversal to create new advertising packages that enable clients to appear during women’s Paris Olympic events specifically.

Being able to access the Olympic opportunity programmatically allows marketers to be choiceful and agile in their approach, with the comparatively low costs opening up the field to advertisers who could never have afforded this kind of reach. Hell, even Olympic newcomer the San Diego Zoo has decided to seize the moment via programmatic and go large. If that’s not an example of the little guys dreaming big, I don’t know what is.

If I were a TOP sponsor, paying upwards of $200m (£156m) for the pleasure, it’s fair to say I’d be looking very closely at what these whippersnapper advertisers can now achieve in terms of Olympic associations for minimal spend.

Sports apparel brand Erima, for example, garnered lots of online love for its full-body unitards worn by Germany’s female gymnasts. Meanwhile, official sponsor Nike was lambasted for its track athletes’ “patriarchal” high-cut bikini line. Ralph Lauren got stick for Team USA’s “embarrassing”, uninspired uniforms, while TikTok went wild for Ulaanbaatar-based label Michel & Amazonka’s stunning uniforms for Team Mongolia. You can’t help feeling a lot of love for the underdogs.

In summary, while no one is suggesting smaller, up-and-coming brands can out-Nike Nike (who has reportedly spent more on this Olympics than any previous Games) or hold a candle to the likes of TOP behemoths such as P&G, it does feel like 2024 may be a watershed year which sees the stark line between official and non-official partners start to blur. When Paris 2024 begins to wind down and the planning for Los Angeles 2028 begins in earnest, I imagine it’s a trend that will only pick up speed.