SPECIAL OLYMPICS REBOUND WITH STRONG CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP

     The Summer Special Olympics has "drawn a record $30-million-
plus in total corporate sponsorships," according to Kate
Fitzgerald in this week's AD AGE.  Such major sponsors as
McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak, IBM, and General Motors
have signed deals "allowing exclusive exposure at various
levels."  To boost sponsorship of the games, organizers have
developed "a tough marketing game plan."  Two new expo parks will
offer marketers "opportunities to sample and demonstrate their
products," as more than 40,000 people are expected at the expo
each day of the nine-day event, to be held in New Haven beginning
July 1.  Another "key" was to lure marketers "whose brands are
synonymous with major sporting events to lend cachet and
excitement."  Special Olympics Exec Dir Peter Wheeler:  "We
wanted to put the heat of sports marketing together with the
feel-good aspect of supporting the Special Olympics ... to turn
this into a much bigger event."  Fleet Financial Group said the
Games "form the core" of Fleet Bank's 1995 marketing campaign.
Karyn Cordner, a marketing spokesperson at Fleet:  "We've found
about 16 different ways to market our logo through the Special
Olympics, from inside our banks to our external messages" (AD
AGE, 4/10 issue).