Advertisers Benefit from Olympic Spirit

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The Olympic Games are not only good for athletes, but advertisers are benefiting as well. Dynamic Logic found that the feel-good spirit of the Olympics is overflowing to the companies and brands that are involved with sponsorship, but consumers are stopping short of visiting the sponsors' Web sites.

The positive associations seem to come from survey respondents' feelings about the Games themselves. The overwhelming majority of the 458 survey respondents said they feel that the Olympic Games are a positive event for athletes and countries around the world, and 89 percent said the Games evoke a sense of national pride.

Just under half (46 percent) of survey participants agree that companies who are Olympics sponsor are industry leaders. Roughly half (51 percent) of respondents recall seeing advertising with the tagline "official sponsors of the 2004 Olympics" and 59 percent reported that they generally notice advertising that includes the easily recognizable Olympic rings.

The North American respondents were more receptive to Olympic-associated advertising than their European counterparts, the survey found.

Consumers' positive feelings for Olympic sponsors evidently did not find their way online. Hitwise found traffic share decreases for the leading Olympic sponsors from Saturday, Aug. 7, 2004 to Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004.

Home Depot posted a 6.38 percent decrease in market share; McDonalds lost 29.63 percent of its site visitors; and traffic to Visa's Web site dropped 32.58 percent.

Olympic fever was evident, however, on sites related to the Games, where Hitwise found phenomenal traffic increases from Saturday, Aug. 7, 2004 to Saturday, Aug. 14, 2004.