The majority of our focus has been on how commercials or negative publicity have been resyndicated and have contributed to the coverage of the top 11 Olympic Sponsors. Proctor & Gamble became a bronze medalist yesterday by a different method.

P&G has used their association with household products to focus on families of the Olympians competing in London this year. At the P&G US Family Home site, speakers are discussing the necessity of family support of athletes:

Tonight at the P&G Family Home dads of Team USA were saluted with a guest appearance by Tyson Chandler, a center for the U.S. basketball team and a father of three. Chandler talked about how his grandfather helped him become the man he is today.

P&G helped Canadian athletes remember that they are not alone as they compete for the gold:

At the mid-way mark of the Olympics, Canadian Olympian and Secret brand ambassador Clara Hughes, along with Pantene brand ambassador Annamay Pierse today joined Procter & Gamble at Canada Olympic House in London for a “Home Away from Home” celebration. Hughes and Pierse spoke to fellow Canadian athletes and their families about the impact family support has had on their careers, and guests were treated to a surprise video of heartfelt messages from family, friends and fans back home. Classic Canadian treats, like poutine with a British twist, were on the menu.

Proctor & Gamble has also benefited from housing the families of athletes by being the site of interviews:

“When Dana didn’t qualify for the Beijing Olympics it was so disappointing but we all learnt from every disappointment and every injury,” Vollmer told Reuters at the P&G House, a centre set up in London for athletes’ families.

The other Top Finishers today were Visa and Coke, with Gold and Silver respectively.

What do you think of P&G’s family-centric approach to sponsorship? They seem to have dodged much of the negative publicity endured by the other top sponsors. Will this continue?

Photo courtesy of LaLunaBlanca

Since the Olympics kicked off on July 27th, we have been using Newsdesk to track the news coverage of the Big 11 corporate sponsors to see who is getting the most coverage for their money.  Today we discuss “News Monitoring: Important and Illuminating, but What’s Next?”.

Monitoring media coverage volume, market, source, etc… is part of a larger process of determining the value of marketing campaigns. More coverage can be great, but does it contribute to the bottom line?

The Motley Fool weighs in with a somewhat pessimistic view of the value of Olympic sponsorship. They give several reasons:

The Games are dominating media coverage today, but that will change shortly.

Chief executives love the pomp and circumstance, but it’s unclear whether shareholders really benefit from their investment.

For the next couple weeks, the Olympics will dominate our airwaves and brainwaves. Come September, though, the presidential election will be back in the spotlight.

Cost-benefit analysis may not bear out the wisdom of sponsorship:

Economist Alexander Molchanov found that expensive sponsorship bids erase almost all the benefit for Olympic partners. In other words, corporations are spending so much money winning sponsorships that they can’t benefit financially from the extra exposure. Perhaps companies like Lenovo (OTC: LNVGY.PK) and Eastman Kodak, which both bowed out in 2010, realized something that Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have not.

Sponsors may actually be helping their competition.

After the 1994 Winter Olympics, a team of researchers conducted a survey to find out if the average Joe knew who sponsored the Olympics that year. A mere 37% of respondents correctly identified McDonald’s and only 18% ID’d Coca-Cola. More astonishing, though, is that 57% incorrectly believed that Wendy’s (Nasdaq: WEN) was a sponsor and 7.5% thought that PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) was doling out the drinks.

Do you think that the sponsors are getting their money’s worth out at the London Games?

Yesterday it was announced that visitors at the London Games have spent almost $700 million using their Visa cards in the first week:

Spending categories that experienced the greatest activity include “Services” (US$133.7 million) – including items such as shoe and jewelry repair and spas; “Entertainment” (US$95.5 million) – including theater tickets and other attractions; “Airlines” (US$82.9 million); “Other Retailers” (US$71.8 million) – including bike shops, book stores, antique shops, and drug stores and more; and “Hotels” (US$69.3 million).

Top Ten Contributors to Spend on Visa Accounts by Country/Territory During Week One of the Games (Throughout the United Kingdom)

Ranking	Country/Territory	Total Spend (USD)	% of Total
1	United States	$85.5 million	12%
2	Japan	$50.9 million	7%
3	France	$41.5 million	6%
4	Italy	$39.5 million	6%
5	Australia	$35.3 million	5%
6	Republic of Ireland	$32.4 million	5%
7	Spain	$31.1 million	4%
8	Germany	$30.9 million	4%
9	Canada	$24.1 million	3%
10	Sweden	$23.4 million	3%

The top 10 contributing countries accounted for 57 per cent of the total amount spent on Visa accounts in the United Kingdom during this time period.

This story has been widely distributed. Combined with another successful real-time congratulatory commercial, this lead to Visa having the largest news coverage of the Top Olympic sponsors.

The Medalists for yesterday are:

• Gold: Visa
• Silver: Coke
• Bronze: McDonald’s

Will Visa, Coke, and McDonald’s continue to dominate the news coverage, or will another sponsor take the spotlight week 2? Check back Monday !

Yesterday, McDonald’s came out on top again with the lion’s share of  Olympic coverage. Conor Dwyer and Ricky Berens, 2 Gold medalists from the US men’s relay swim team, made McDonald’s their go-to restaurant after their victory:

Swimmers normally eat very healthy stuff, Dwyer said, but a gold medal hanging around your neck leads you to venture into new caloric neighborhoods.

Dwyer ordered a Quarter Pounder, two six-piece chicken nuggets, french fries and a McFlurry ice cream sundae. Berens, according to his Twitter photo, went even bigger: Two Quarter Pounders, a Big Mac, a six-piece nugget order, two french fries and a McFlurry.

Adding to McDonald’s Olympic coverage in the Canadian media was the story of Brittany Rogers and the national gymnastics team placing 5th, their best finish ever. Brittany’s mother, Gina, wrote about the story which was re-syndicated across Canada:

After the competition, the team was whisked away in a CTV van taking them straight to the TV London studios.  There, they all sat on the white couch and had a spotlight interview.  From there, they quickly wolfed down a McDonalds salad as a 10:00 p.m. dinner, and were taken to the Canada House to finally celebrate with their family and friends.

The top sponsors for the day were:

• Gold: McDonald’s
• Silver: Visa
• Bronze: Coke
• Honorable Mention: Panasonic

Coke and Panasonic were neck-and-neck, but the soft drink giant’s numbers were just a bit higher.

Will going to McDonald’s after a victory catch on in popular culture?

Gold: McDonald’s

Silver: Coke

Bronze: Visa

McDonald’s had the most coverage, driven largely by their being the official restaurant of the Olympics. All 3 of today’s medalist received negative coverage due to continuing public outcry over their monopolistic sponsorship agreements.

Check back tomorrow for more results!

Visa is hoping that there is no such thing as bad publicity after a system malfunction left spectators unable to pay with their Visa cards at Wembley Stadium. Unfortunately, as a condition of their sponsorship, Visa is the only accepted credit card at the 2012 Olympics, leading to long lines for concessions and disgruntled visitors.

This mishap was the main feature on dozens of sites and gained a passing mention in many more.

On the positive side of things, Visa did get good coverage with their real-time congratulatory commercial for Emilie Heyman:

[Visa] introduced a new congratulatory commercial celebrating Emilie Heyman’s bronze medal performance in women’s synchronized 3-metre springboard at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The spot, entitled “Congratulations Emilie,” aired on Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium and features an image of Emilie on the podium in London.

Visa had more coverage than Coke and GE combined.

Our medalists for most news coverage on the 30th of July are:

• Gold: Visa
• Silver: Coke
  
• Bronze: GE

After taking Bronze over the weekend, Samsung did not place in the top 3 today and GE won their first medal.

What is your opinion about Visa’s sponsorship? Even with the troubles at Wembley, was it still a good move to have a monopoly on payments at the games? Tell us in the comments!