Olympic Marketing Notes: McDonald's Unveils U.K. Ad Campaign For London Games

MARKETING magazine’s John Reynolds reports McDonald's unveiled details of its U.K. Olympic and Paralympic campaign, which will be called “We All Make The Games.” The campaign will “involve guerrilla film crews and a TV campaign that will celebrate the people and moments of the games.” McDonald’s said that it is spending US$15.6M on the campaign, which “will run for 10 weeks over the summer.” Unlike “many of the other Olympic sponsors, McDonald’s has chosen to launch its big campaign close to the start of the Olympics," which begin a month from today. The campaign will “run in three phases -- outdoor and TV, guerrilla film crews, and the use of clips, images and comments to celebrate the people who made the Olympics.” The TV ad “has been created by Leo Burnett" (MARKETINGMAGAZINE.co.uk, 6/27).

RECORD PLAYER: CBSSPORTS.com’s Bryan Fischer cited a source as saying that U.S. decathlete Ashton Eaton, who set a new world record of 9,039 points last weekend at the U.S. Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Ore., is “getting paid $750,000” by Nike as a bonus for achieving the record. Fischer: “Given that Olympians are not the highest paid athletes in the world, that's a lot of dough” (CBSSPORTS.com, 6/26). Meanwhile, Eaton on Sunday appeared at a Safeway location in Eugene and at the Trials Fan Festival "on behalf of sponsor Powerade" (Eugene REGISTER-GUARD, 6/25).

BOLTED OFF: CAMPAIGN LIVE’s Sarah Shearman notes Virgin Media has been “rapped by the ad watchdog for two online ads featuring [Jamaican sprinter] Usain Bolt as Richard Branson, after BSkyB challenged its broadband speed claims.” A message on Virgin Media's website "featured Bolt delivering 'a message from Richard Branson,' claiming that he was doubling everyone’s broadband speeds 'because I can.'" Sky contested that “the small print, saying broadband speeds would only be doubled in cabled areas and customers who already have a 100Mb connection would get a price cut instead of double speed, was misleading and contradicted the main claim.” Virgin Media launched the Bolt ad campaign, created by DDB UK, in January. It was the “biggest campaign to date for the telecoms provider” (CAMPAIGNLIVE.co.uk, 6/27).