Creative Approach to Paris 2024 Partnerships Raises Compelling Questions
July 29, 2024
The French revolution typically refers to the events of 1789-99, including the beheading of Marie Antoinette, an event depicted in stunningly artistic fashion during the Opening Ceremonies of the Paris Olympic Games last Friday.
But those ceremonies and other developments surrounding this year’s Games may very well be remembered as the start of a second French revolution in the way brands and organizers approach Olympic partnerships.
To start, the opening events themselves—already unique in many ways—featured the most prominent partner integration in the history of such ceremonies. Paris 2024 went beyond the usual parade of nations presence of sponsors that outfit national delegations and international partners such as Samsung and Coca-Cola—who supplied products to athletes and others so that live shots included bottles of Smartwater and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 Olympic Edition phones.
Breaking new ground, the pre-recorded cinematic component of the program elegantly weaved Paris 2024 Organizing Committee Premium Partner LVMH into its torch run narrative, as viewers saw a recreation of the medal cases being made by Louis Vuitton before actual cases were rolled along the banks of the Seine and presented to Olympic greats Michael Phelps and Martin Fourcade.
In addition, LVMH fashion house Dior created costumes for performers in five of the show’s 12 live tableaus, including dresses for Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Aya Nakamura and Axelle Saint-Cirel, who sang the French national anthem atop the Grand Palais.
While many have hailed the sponsor integration, some—including industry pioneer Lesa Ukman—view this as the local organizing committee “ambushing” higher level sponsors.
The argument, articulated by Ukman in a LinkedIn post, goes: “The LVMH placements in the opening, while a wonderful showcase of French fashion and creative partner integration, made LVMH appear bigger than all the other partners combined, including the highest-level TOP sponsors…The (Organizing Committee) itself ambushed the TOP partners and its cosponsors by favoring one and ignoring all the rest.
“The Paris opening ceremonies set a new frame for how sponsors can be integrated into the action in a stylish way. But if I were a TOP partner, I’d ask why a local partner got hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of global exposure when global partners had no such opportunity…Going forward I guarantee the IOC will demand to see local Organizing Committee sponsor integrations in advance.”
The counterargument is that for each time a property and a sponsor create a co-branded, relevant activation for one element of an event, it is impractical to obligate the property to give every other sponsor at that level and above the same opportunity.
Should all 21 TOP and Premium Partners have been incorporated into the Opening Ceremonies in order to avoid charges of ambushing? Imagine what that would have looked like. Or should the Organizing Committee have said no to this idea because it could not be offered to all sponsors? Although that be the fairest option, it would be a shame to kill a great activation in the pursuit of trying to make all things equal.
As long as the Organizing Committee works with all the TOP and Premium Partners to help them activate against their objectives across the two weeks of Olympic events, it can be judged to be acting equitably and not perpetrating ambush marketing.
