Our Biggest Olympic Marketing Takeaways from Milan

It’s a Winter Olympic year, which means winter sport fans everywhere have been tuned into their TVs for the last month. This year stood out though, and not always for the right reasons. From major upsets to Gold-medal triumphs, listen for our biggest takeaways from Milan. What was your favorite moment from this year’s Olympics?

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Welcome to the For What It’s Worth Podcast, where two highly opinionated marketing professionals offer some commentary on the current events that have people talking: in the moment stories, news, controversies, and more — we’ll dissect it all. We’re Jessica and Kayla, here to offer some culture conversations with a dash of media and marketing perspective — for whatever it’s worth. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of For What It's Worth. It's Jessica and Kayla here again. And today we're gonna talk about the Olympics.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yes, very exciting. I do feel like I'm normally a Summer Olympics person, but this year I found myself a little more tuned into the Winter Olympics, which is part of what we'll be talking about. Yeah. But I was a lifelong swimmer, and so that was my stuff with the Summer Olympics. I would love to be a figure skater or something like that, but I don't have the talent. So I was never really super into the Winter Olympics, but this year I was dialed in and so are many of my friends. So it's been an interesting year at the Winter Olympics.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yeah. Awesome. Well, we're gonna jump right into this episode. So if you don't follow us, make sure you click subscribe so you never miss an upload from us. And we'd also love to hear your opinion because that's what this is all about, is for what it's worth and sharing our opinions. So let's jump right in. So why do you think that you were more in tune to the winter Olympics this year or people in general? Because from what I read, it is true that people were more, you know, watching it and paid more attention to the Winter Olympics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, I think for me it was specifically like I don't know if I'd call them fails, but there were quite a few like big like upsets that happened um this year at the Winter Olympics. So people who we thought were gonna go all the way who didn't, or people that we were rooting for who ended up with injuries or fails, unfortunately, or even just like the controversy of the whole hockey team, all that stuff. I think it was just kind of the spectacle of it all that was really making us all tune in. Um, so that's kind of where we were at because we were watching it every week, or just staying in touch with things. Cause for example, like Amber Glenn, she's she's a figure skater who's had a really like I love her, I think she's great. She skated to um Madonna like a prayer. Yeah. And so I was like, oh my God, I would love to see her skate. I'm so rooting for her. And I was about to tune in to the broadcast to watch her, and I got a news notification that she'd fallen like I think it was twice, maybe. I don't know. But she so she had again some failed jumps and stuff that immediately knocked her out. And she was the gold medal favorite for the US, which was then eventually taken by the person who was supposed to be maybe the silver medalist or the bronze medalist or so. I feel like that was one of the things where I was really rooting for that person personally, and then someone else just kind of came up from behind and it was like, oh my god. So that's what everyone's talking about now, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I think you're right. I think there was a lot of headlines um because it wasn't just her, but our, you know, the the male figure skater, the quad god, right? Um, and I think that's what it was so funny because even before um he had fallen, I tuned in because I saw his nickname and I thought that was really fun, and and how they talked about him and how great, you know, this was gonna be. And um, I think that just made, like you said, you saw the headlines and you wanted to kind of be a part of that. I think also, you know, the Lindsay Vaughn thing that happened, um, wasn't it like the week before she got injured, tore her ACL or whatever? And so it immediately, and then when you heard she was gonna compete, you were like, okay, again, I have to watch this because I cannot believe this is gonna happen. And then we all know what happened. Um, so I think, yeah, people were watching it more. Those those headlines were really big this year for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

And then on the hockey side of things, which was all anyone was talking about for the last couple of weeks. Um, I remember like in in Minnesota, we're big hockey people. So we that's one of the things that we pride ourselves on. And so even on my college campus, like the big thing was well, the women won and then the men won too. Oh my gosh, this is incredible, this is amazing. And it went sour, like in record time. All of a sudden, those headlines had completely changed, and it was less about both teams winning historically, like that was insane. Right. And then it's in overtime against Canada, both of them. Both of them. I know. You can't you can't make this stuff up, right? And then the fastest like PR fail of all time just went downhill, and it's continued to be handled really interestingly ever since. Um, so it started this whole topic of conversation around like um women in sports. We've been talking about it on our college campus for weeks because we're split um on a men's and women's campus, and just typically the women's sports get less of a turnout. I mean, Johnny football is huge at my college. And so, like, it's always been a little bit less of a cultural thing for us um with when it comes to Benny athletics, which is such a shame and it shouldn't be that way. And I do think it's trending in the right direction. But we were talking about it a lot where it's just like for equal accomplishments, how do we approach different teams and different people? Oh my gosh, I just I had never seen such a quick turnaround. First, everyone was sharing all the oh my gosh, the men won too on their Instagrams, and then I saw people started to take it down because they were like, oh, never mind, right? Not so happy anymore. Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah, and and I think like you said, it makes me wonder too regionally, um, you know, winter, winter's just winter here in Minnesota versus the other parts of the country necessarily, because you know, we had a lot more athletes, right? You know, the the curling team, I mean, being from Duluth, especially the the the mixed um being from from Duluth was really cool to watch, I think, in this area. And then, I mean, I was excited to see that the women's curling um went further than the men's because of that issue, right? Right. Because you just want to see that because you just, you know, as women, we don't see that covered as much. And so you're kind of cheering for that to happen. And so I think, yeah, in this area, definitely the Winter Olympics really picked up. I think across the country it did, though, too. And one of the biggest things that I think contributed to it was, you know, the previous Olympics that MBC really brought on Snoop Dogg, right? Yeah. I mean, such a such a kind of random thing that you would think, but he got so much hype. And so then for that him, them to bring him back for the winter Olympics, I think was huge. And then I think it leads also into even though they're the summer Olympics, they're in LA next. And so I think that people already are getting excited that the next Olympics are actually here at home. And the gap between the winter and the summer is shorter now. Like it's it's I think it's like a year and a half and ends up being in stuff. So I think that that also brought excitement because during these Olympics, they were already opening the portal to get tickets for the Summer Olympics in LA. And so I think that kind of Olympic fever, they did capitalize on that, and I thought they did a great job with that.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, and I think too, just like Minnesotans again, we weren't we like the top, I thought we were the top state in terms of medals. Yes. I could be wrong about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Well, and even in the men's hockey, um, the wild had the most players in the Olympics.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, which is so crazy. And I and I feel like that's for Minnesotans, it's funny because even if maybe we feel like it's not quite as publicized when it comes to the Winter Olympics, here I think people are a little more invested. Yeah, just because of the nature of the sports that we play here and what we're interested in. Right. Um, so there's always a little bit more of that. We're dialed in a little bit more up here when it comes to the Winter Olympics. I think you're right about that. And I think that the Olympics fever, like they totally capitalize off of that. Because I think it's for certain athletes, if you're only a Summer Olympic athlete, you got four years until you gotta be ready to go again. But if you're a fan, you've only got two years max to wait before you've got another run at oh my gosh, so exciting! And I think them being here is a really big draw for Americans in particular. Um, but yeah, I mean, like obviously we're here in America, so that's what our news cycle is dominated by. But I think a lot of the big upsets and and some of the crazy drama and stuff like that happened quite a bit with the Americans this year. For sure. So interesting. So interesting. Except for the one guy that said he cheated on his girlfriend after he won bronze. I I don't know. I think he might have been from Norway or Sweden or something.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

I think he was Canadian, possibly. Oh yeah. And then this, I think the Sweden team. No, that was the curling. Yeah. No, that was the curling, right? So there was like two cheating. One was like cheating with a significant other, and one was cheating.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

And the other one was cheating by touching the thing. Oh my gosh. So maybe it's maybe that's the truth. Seriously. I know it's insane. I remember seeing it on the internet afterwards, the guy being like, I'm hoping that she'll forgive me if I tell everyone at the Olympics that I cheated on her. What? I crazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Using using the Olympics as your PR, which is great uh segue into PR and advertising and marketing. It was really interesting this year. I don't know, and I think this is what caught my attention too is I don't know that one brand that has current, like let's say advertising on streaming services didn't capitalize on the Olympics, that they didn't create an ad that pertained to the Olympics. And I thought that was really cool that a lot of them were very emotional, storytelling, nostalgic ones. Um, because I know we we recently did the Super Bowl one talking about ads, but I think it kind of rolled right into the Olympics and where the advertisers kind of took that and ran with it and did a really good job. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

It's it's so funny. It felt like it was kind of everywhere. And like I said, I don't think I've ever noticed it this much. I think they had a really solid team USA presence, like people who were kind of social media darlings and things like that, especially the figure skaters and and the quag god and everybody else. So I think you had a lot of those people that were very, I don't know, like internet. The their internet presence was already kind of there. Right. And so it was really easy for them to capitalize on it. I saw Honda was doing advertisements with the figure skaters and the rest of the team. Like it's just, I don't think I've ever seen it that much. No. The volume of it was what I noticed.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Especially, especially brands that you wouldn't normally, I think, associate with sports or things like Hershey's had one and Walmart had one and um Comcast had, I mean, they all did and and were able to tie it back and and so thing I I think that really worked in their favor. So absolutely, for sure. Um so overall, we'll just wrap this up, but what what's your kind of parting thought on the Winter Olympics?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

I think the biggest thing for me that's gotta stick out is the hockey thing. I don't think I've ever seen something kind of crash and burn that spectacularly. And it changed the narrative entirely. I think it just really shows that when you're not prepared for these, it it seemed to me that the men's team was kind of not prepared for what they were going to receive. They weren't prepared for this to be brought into their locker room. They weren't prepared for the response afterwards. And people are still talking about it, and it's still an ongoing like culture conversation now. So I think it just speaks to the fact that like even athletes in this day and age need to be PR trained and understand how their actions come across and what they do afterwards. Because there were a lot of people who were saying that this might have been over a lot quicker had certain things been handled differently on both sides with the men and the women. Right. Um, so yeah, it was just a very that was a quick turnaround, man. It's gotta sting a little bit. Right. And it doesn't diminish their win. I think it's a really great accomplishment, and especially doing it with both teams this year um for the first time in like ever.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Um but I and again doesn't diminish their accomplishment, but I do think for the public, it does. If that's what people are gonna remember, then that's unfortunately what you got. That's what you're gonna leave with. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

And I think that's a really good point. Um the the thought I had was that PR, you know, right? It's so important because people think of brands with companies, right? Right. A company as a brand, but you have a personal brand as well. Absolutely. And to be aware of that and to be aware of a crisis campaign. Yeah, you cannot prepare whether it's your company, yourself, your brand, whatever it is, enough for a crisis to happen. And the crisis doesn't have to be catastrophic, but to always be prepared to have that PR plan in place for anything, you know, those crisis moments. That how are you gonna address this? Because it's gonna happen, you know, at some point, or something's gonna be um spun a different way or some some way that you didn't want it to. So, how can you be prepared for that? Um, and that's definitely something that we talk to our clients about a lot is PR is more important than other, more important than ever, just because of, like you said, how quickly things can happen in spiral and little clips can be taken out of context and people can just run with things. And so you never, you know, thought it could happen, but yeah, with this day and age it can. So I think it's really important for for everyone to just be aware of how PR and especially crisis PR is important to be prepared for. Yeah, absolutely. So, well, we would like to hear your two cents regarding the Olympics, what you thought of them. Um, like we said, they're coming up the the summer are coming up faster than we know here in LA. I would give anything to be able to go about tickets. So, I mean, yeah. So share your thoughts of what you thought of the Olympics. We would love to hear uh your two cents for what it's worth, as you just heard ours. So make sure you tune in next time for another episode of For What It's Worth.