Adland_ Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet - James P. Othmer [116]
It was a fascinating time for aficionados of human rights causes, global marketing issues, and watching huge corporations squirm. The corporations squirmed because this time there was no easy out for a company. In the past, if there was even a minute chance that any aspect of a major corporate marketing effort would make a company look bad, ass-and face-saving protocol mandated the killing of the spot, the pulling of the campaign—and, in drastic circumstances, the termination of the $90-million-plus sponsorship.
So why, with people rising worldwide to protest political and cultural oppression in Tibet, China’s relationship with Sudan amid the genocide in Darfur, and the Chinese government’s human rights record at home, didn’t Coke, or McDonald’s, or Kodak run away from the controversy faster than you can say lead-tainted Happy Meal tchotchkes?
The answer, of course, is money. Because while backing out of an Olympic sponsorship while the entire planet was watching might have temporarily placated much of the politically correct free world, it would also have had the opposite and longer-lasting effect on several billion people in the planet’s largest market, emerging and otherwise: China. And the Chinese government and Chinese expats everywhere were making it increasingly clear to those who were primed to oppose their showcase Games: cross us and you will be severely punished in the marketplace.
Look at what happened to the French-owned Carrefour supermarket chain after it publicly supported pro-Tibetan rights. Outraged Chinese protesters came out in the thousands and boycotted Carrefour’s stores around the world. Essentially, they were protesting the protesters. Rather than rising up and renouncing their country’s policies, Chinese consumers, determined not to let their Olympic pride be tarnished, rose up with nationalistic vengeance against Carrefour and anyone else brave enough to mess with them.
Plus, the sponsorships themselves were at stake. Entire marketing programs, many planned years in advance, revolved around and depended on a successful Olympic launch. And while the games and the athletes in theory are the reason for the Olympics, for better or worse the modern Olympics wouldn’t be quite the same without sponsors. For instance, during the 2006 Turin Winter Games, Sally Jenkins wrote in the Washington Post, “There were just 2,500 athletes here, compared to 10,000 guests of the 11 top Olympic sponsors—including Visa, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.”
When groups such as Dream for Darfur charged sixteen Olympics-sponsoring companies with “moral cowardice” and planned a series of protests at various corporate headquarters and urged people to turn off commercials during the Games, the corporate response was mixed. For their part, some of the 2008 sponsors, including Coke and McDonald’s, issued statements expressing regret for the situations in places like Tibet and Darfur and decrying acts like genocide, censorship, and senseless executions. Kodak went so far as to write to the United Nations expressing concern about Darfur. But no one said anything explicit or damning about China. No one demanded policy change, or the initiation of dialogue, or threatened to pull out of the Games. Most echoed the sentiment of this statement by the Volkswagen spokesman Andreas Meurer: “We are supporting the Olympic idea and do not see it as a requirement to solve these political problems.”
The only high-profile boycott came from Steven Spielberg, who had been hired as an artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies but in a statement said that because of “continuing suffering in Darfur … I find that my conscience will not allow me to do business as usual.”
But while Spielberg took a stand, and even jeopardized the opening gross in China of his film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, most corporations continued to contend that the Olympics shouldn’t be politicized and that politics and their brands should not cross paths, anyway.
Ultimately, brand beliefs were weighed against bottom