Over the last few days, Johnson & Johnson has been attracting people to its showcase on the Olympic Green with 2,000-year-old Chinese artifacts, the Terracotta Warriors. But the first-time TOP sponsor has been busy in China for three years trying to make the most of its sponsorship here. Owen Rankin, Johnson & Johnson’s vice president of corporate equity and Olympic sponsorship, sat down with SportsBusiness Journal staff writer Tripp Mickle to explain what the company is doing, what its goals are and how its efforts are working to date.

---

What are your immediate impressions of the Olympics?
Rankin: The opening ceremony was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my life. When the first two rows of drummers as far as you could see rolled out there, I was blown away. And when the next two rows of the same number of drummers rolled out there it was absolutely incredible. The spectacle was amazing. I expected to be impressed, but I was really stunned in terms of how they did it. The magnitude of the preparation to pull that off was absolutely incredible.

Is there anything you wish was different?
Rankin: I wish the weather were a little bit clearer. The green is beautiful, but on Saturday night it was a 70-degree clear sky night and the view down the Green from our pavilion was incredible. I just wish for the people who were covering it, that it was clear so they could have clear pictures. Hopefully, over the next few days the sun will come out.

What are your plans for the future of J&J in the TOP program?
Rankin: When we get back we’ll look at the rest of the data points and say, “Does this make sense as a place for us to be?”

This is a multimillion-dollar facility all in. Tell me about that investment.
Rankin: It’s one of those things where we made a decision that having a presence here was important from a Johnson & Johnson perspective. Once you make that decision, it’s not about getting away with doing something a little bit smaller or cheaper. You have to say, “Coke’s going to do a great thing and GE is going to do a great thing and Samsung is going to do a great thing. If we want to be in that space, we need to do a great thing.”

We took a slightly different angle on it. We wanted it to be more consistent with our values and who we are as a corporation rather than try to be flashy, big and brash. There are other people already doing that and we knew we couldn’t do that better than they did it. We decided to go for a unique space we could occupy that’s more calming, soothing, relaxing, comforting, caring. That’s what we think we did.

Was there an arms race between sponsors to build the biggest exhibition?
Rankin: No, no, no. No one knew what anyone else was doing. We had no clue. We just looked at other Games and got a sense for what Coke’s progression looks like and Samsung’s evolution. We got a sense of the trajectory they were on and said, “OK, if we’re going to be there, we need to be in that space, in that kind of quality, because if we’re not, then it’s a waste of money.”

Is part of it the fact that here in China the Games are intrinsically tied to the government? Was there an expectation you have something big?
Rankin: There was no pressure from the organizaing committee that we had to build something. It was more driven by our sense that we had an opportunity to connect with the Chinese people and introduce them to who we are and what we stand for in a unique way.

When you all decided to get involved with the Olympics in 2005, was it about Beijing, about the U.S. or about the world?
Rankin: It started out as China because we’ve been in China for more than 20 years. We’ve been working with the health system and the government. For us, because the Games in China is so well connected to the government, it was a natural progression for us. We’re working with the government to do other things.

So it was a way to further entrench yourself, if you will?
Rankin: Not entrench. But if you just did a walk through and said, “Oh, I didn’t know that’s who they were. Or I didn’t know they made those things. Or I didn’t know they did that much philanthropy.” What we wanted to do was make people aware of what we do and the capabilities we have because we’ll be in China 100 years from now. It’s not about, “Hey, can we sell something this year to make a difference on our numbers this year.” It’s about: How can we build a deeper and deeper relationship so that in 50 years and 100 years it’s part of this continued progression.

How do you follow on this and remain in the public sector in a way that’s still relevant in China?
Rankin: The core idea that is the umbrella over everything are these four Chinese characters: ying ai er sheng. The best translation is — “Because we care, we act.” All of our programs have been tied around that theme. Whether it’s our advertising or our philanthropy programs or finding people around China who are caring and bringing them to the Games to tell their story to the volunteers, everything is tied to that, so that legacy lives on. We built a Web site for our businesses here that wouldn’t have happened with the Games. We tried to create some momentum through these Games based on this caring core. It’s not like the curtains go down and nothing’s left behind. For us, it’s about a long-term objective.

What does your advertising look like here?
Rankin: We have multiple companies doing multiple different things under different brands. In China, we linked everything with a composite logo so that everyone knows that brand is connected to Johnson & Johnson and the Olympic sponsorship. Then we built some corporate advertising on top of that with “Ying ai er Sheng.” We used the Beijing logo in everything, and obviously it’s very powerful.

How are you measuring your success here?
Rankin: Everything that you do, whether it’s display advertising or a sampling program, there are so many pieces to it that it’s hard to quantify a direct result. So we’ve created programs and tracked how people perceive us in China. From where we were before we signed the deal and now, we’ve made huge progress.

Like what? How much percentage growth?
Rankin: A lot. Part of it is creating this awareness that we’re a company in China. We track 17 or 18 different metrics, from leader in healthcare to cares about the environment to understands children, and we track each of those attributes over time. We’ve seen a lot of those attributes double over the course of three years and have seen a huge progression in what people know about us and what they think about us as a company.

What are you doing in the U.S.?
Rankin: We’re tracking sales in the U.S. and we’ll know more after December.

One question I can’t help but ask is: All these showcases, they’ve built and invested a lot into, but they’re going to demolish them afterwards. Every single one, including your own, seems to have a Green theme. Destroying these doesn’t seem to play into the Green concept. How do you reconcile that?
Rankin: I would agree that investment that companies have made to build these showcases is far beyond anything the organizing committee expected. I think they expected simple structures that to take down would be relatively easy to do. What sponsors like us felt was there was an opportunity to do something more. We have been and will continue to try to work with the city to find a use for this facility after we leave.

So you don’t plan to demolish this?
Rankin: The plans are all the buildings come down. We’ve been having conversations to find out if there are things that could be done to change those plans. The building could be used for amazing things. It could be an exhibit space for art after the Games. It could be a walking tour of what happens after 2008. We’re pushing for that, but if the city says we need to take it down, we’ll take it down.