By Greg Curchod and Kenneth Quah, consultants, TSE Consulting Switzerland
SPECIAL TO GAMESBIDS.COM – London 2012 launched its logo last week and within 24 hours nearly 50,000 Britons had signed a petition asking to have it banned, scrapped and re-done. There were cries of “rubbish, puerile and childish”. Never before has the launch of a new logo or a new brand generated so much debate and media exposure and certainly never the launch of a logo for an Olympic Games. So what was all the fuss about?
Lord Coe and his extremely competent team at London2012 have engaged one of the very brightest brand design consultancies in the world and have developed something which has to live and evolve over the next five years. They have created something which is bold and daring and something that they believe will appeal to a new younger generation.
“It is designed as a proper consumer brand rather than a corporate brand you’ve seen in other Olympic Games and it will stand alongside all the other leading sports brands” said Chris Townsend, the Commercial Director of London2012.
And even the President of the IOC, who had presumably given his own approval to this new brand, carrying as it must the IOC’s sacrosanct 5 rings, said ” This is a truly innovative brand logo that captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games – namely to inspire young people around the world through sport and the Olympic values. The London brand is, I believe, an early indication of this dynamism and modernity.”
So Seb Coe and his team are committed to carry through with the message that they gave to the IOC during their final presentation in Singapore, that London was a city like no other city and by giving the Games to London the IOC would be acknowledging what London could do to inspire the youth of the world and to dramatically move forward the whole Olympic movement.
A widening gap between the movement and its hosts
But can London’s innovative approach alone inspire millions of young people to engage with the Olympic movement?
Sadly, there would appear to be a yawning gap between the new dynamism of London’s marketing approach and the rather traditional approach to the presentation of sport still adopted by the IOC and its International Federations. Many federations are aware of this and are actively addressing the way that their sports’ major events are presented to the public, both on the field of play and through innovative television production, in the knowledge that they must all find ways to attract a new generation of supporters and participants.
It is however unlikely that an event that still has uniformed athletes marching into the stadium in military fashion behind their national flags and whose champions are marched on to and off the field of play to collect their medals and their ubiquitous bunch of flowers from blazered officials will sit comfortably with the youth of today and the digital explosion that they are continuously confronted with in their daily lives.
When we think about the IOC we think about tradition, we think about history, we think about the white Olympic flag with its coloured interconnected rings, the Olympic hymn and the torch. It is these attributes that the IOC is at pains to remind us of. But, for the youth of today, history and tradition are not what motivates them. These are actually the things that they absolutely do not care about, which is why London and its creative team have gone out of their way to avoid such things. Ironically, surely the youth of today would rarely even consider “2012” (the heart of the new London logo). For any child today, 2012 must seem like decades away!
Undoubtedly London, the IOC and the Olympic movement should be reaching out to attract the new market which is the youth of today, but London’s approach could also potentially alienate the traditional, core Olympic supporters. If the movement was to adopt such an approach it could also of course be seen to be desperately trying to attract this new audience to the detriment of the current one.
However, for the whole Olympic movement to truly be seen to be reaching out to a new generation of youth in the world, they surely must not just allow London to present an exciting and modern look and feel for its own brand, but should welcome London’s bold approach and embrace it with open arms. We know the immense impact that sport can have on so many people, so let’s hope that the whole movement can take heart from the bold approach taken by London.
London has raised the bar in a dramatic fashion with its exciting and innovative approach to its branding for the 2012 Games, but how will this really sit with the movement and with the sports?
By adopting such a bold approach to attracting a new younger audience for the Games (and nobody would argue that this has to be a major priority) a similar approach should ideally also be adopted by the IOC, its sports and its National Olympic Committees around the world. London wants to make their new brand more open and wants to encourage young people to impose their own designs – a sort of “your logo for your Games” approach. But it is unlikely that the Games themselves and the sporting spectacle that they must become are yet ready to adopt such a dramatic approach.
A new brand for a new approach
There is certainly every possibility that the whole look and feel of the London Games will be like no other Games before them. It will be bright and modern and bold and cutting edge and will truly be representative of the booming modern city that London has become. So, many congratulations are due to his Lordship and his team in London. They have realised that an Olympic city brand is more than just a static logo but a whole new consumer brand that will play a major role in helping LOCOG to raise the staggering sum of £2-billion (US$4-billion) that they have committed to raise from the private sector to support the London Games. They have also done something very positive to attract a whole new generation to support the London Games.
If the launch of a new logo can create so much noise and attention throughout the world, imagine the impact that a new look and approach for the whole movement of international sport would have.
Ask the kids!
This and other stories are available at TSE Consulting’s bi-monthly newsletter TSE Commentator.
