The decision-makers for Pyeongchang, South Korea's bid for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games thought Pyeongchang was not as well known as the two other finalists, Vancouver and Salzburg, Austria, so they turned to Edelman Sports & Sponsorship Marketing of New York to help generate additional buzz.
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 Campaign: 2010 Pyeongchang Olympic Bid Committee goes for gold with PR |
| Client: 2010 Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Bid Committee |
| PR firm: Edelman Sports & Sponsorship Marketing |
| Top officers on account: Peter Land, executive vice president, general manager; Mary Griswold, executive vice president, deputy general manager |
| Campaign time frame: April-July |
| Campaign budget: Mid-six figures |
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The Pyeongchang bid challenged Edelman to design and carry out a 12-week communications program to help raise awareness in key global markets leading up to the International Olympic Committee's host-city decision, to be made in Prague on Wednesday.
In addition to keeping a 28-person, 12-office, three-continent PR team synchronized, there were many other challenges to this campaign, including the short time frame:
The national and international media spotlight was on the war in Iraq.
There was intense media coverage of North Korea's nuclear activities.
The media lacked awareness of Pyeongchang as a winter sports destination.
Top bid spokespeople spoke only Korean.
Edelman focused on large, national and international media targets, particularly Olympic journalists.
Many global PR campaigns contain a variety of communications strategies, including news conferences. Unfortunately for Edelman, during periods of time leading up to the vote, as determined by the IOC, public media events are prohibited, mainly to keep the playing field as level as possible.
Because of the regulations, Edelman chose the media tour as its chief communication component. Edelman also increased the number of small roundtable interviews.
Throughout the 12-week campaign, Edelman organized media tours for Pyeongchang bid representatives in Washington, D.C., New York, London, Paris, Hamburg and Milan.
Jin-Sun Kim, the governor of the province where Pyeongchang is located, is the executive director and spokesman for the bid. With a compressed campaign time frame, Edelman needed to get Kim in front of the media almost immediately. First, however, it had to media-train him. To overcome the challenge, Edelman instructed Kim to touch on key points during interviews:
North Korea already has pledged its support for the bid, and preparing for and staging the Games could usher in a new era of peace and cooperation on the Korean peninsula.
The IOC could further enhance Asia's growing enthusiasm for winter sports if it were to award the Olympic Winter Games to Pyeongchang, which is already a top winter destination for Asian travelers.
Korea has had success in hosting past international sporting events (1998 Olympic Games, 2002 World Cup).
The Edelman team continued to pitch the media in the final weeks of the campaign. It also is offering media access to Pyeongchang bid representatives while they are in Prague awaiting the decision.
The 12-week campaign has generated impressive results, including hits in Reuters, The Associated Press, Agence France Presse, USA Today, The New York Times, Scripps Howard News Service, the BBC and The London Times.
If the Pyeongchang bid gets the nod, it is unclear what role Edelman will play leading up to 2010. Edelman has shown, though, that it can produce strong results within a compressed campaign.
Interesting PR campaigns can be sent to Wayne Henninger (whenninger@sportsbusinessjournal.com), a PR professional and writer in Washington, D.C.
