Bridgestone has agreed to become the first advertiser on the fledgling Olympic Channel, committing a “significant” sum beyond its 10-year IOC global sponsorship for a founding channel partnership, sources said.
Along with typical digital advertising inventory, Bridgestone gets the right to produce its own advertorial content, input on emphasized athletes and storylines in Olympic Channel productions and access to certain site analytics. To start, the Japanese tire manufacturer will be presenting sponsor of “Against All Odds,” an eight-episode series about Olympians who overcame adversity.
The new free-to-watch streaming site is an attempt by the IOC to create more inventory and value for its worldwide sponsors at a time when the price of Olympic rights is rising rapidly.
Michael Fluck, Bridgestone senior director, digital marketing and strategy, said the tire maker is eager for the chance to activate during the lull between Rio and the Pyeongchang Winter Games in February 2018, and then again in between then and Tokyo in 2020. Bridgestone has rights through 2024.
“Our general advertising package is within the Games or near the Games, but this is a 365-days-a-year opportunity, and it also allows us to engage with a younger audience,” Fluck said.
Fluck also called the Olympic Channel his company’s “first truly global marketing opportunity.”
The digital channel will launch Aug. 21, shortly after the conclusion of the Rio closing ceremony. The IOC is hoping to sell similar packages to another five Olympic sponsors. Precise terms were not disclosed.
The deal runs only through 2020, at which point the IOC will look to include the Olympic Channel advertising inventory as part of the standard package for worldwide sponsors, IOC head of marketing Timo Lumme said in July. Sixty percent of the site’s inventory is reserved for sponsors.
Eventually, Bridgestone will co-create and produce its own content for the site, but for now, “We are relying on the IOC to create content,” Fluck said.
Much of the channel’s sales-generation potential will be unlocked after it becomes geographically differentiated, Fluck said, allowing for U.S.-specific promotional offers or German-language ads, for instance. Until January 2017, Bridgestone only has rights to activate in the U.S., Brazil, Korea and Japan.
“There are some really unique sports creative being produced out of the European team, but we don’t have the rights for Europe until 2017,” Fluck said. “Probably when we have the global rights as a TOP sponsor, we’ll be able contribute more of that co-creation.”
The channel, found at olympicchannel.com and through decimated social media feeds, will be free for all viewers in an attempt to maximize sponsor impressions. It will mostly include features on current athletes and archival packages but has signed deals with 11 international sport governing bodies to simulcast events.
Bridgestone paid a reported $344 million for its 10-year IOC deal in 2014.
