London Update: Hotel Partner Next To Be Named; American-Owned Ad Agency Wins London Pitch

Hotel Deal in the Offing

The next sponsorship deal likely to be announced by LOCOG is expected to be an official hotel partner, Around the Rings understands.

However, the search for a retail partner remains in the balance due to opposition from global Olympic partners including Coca-Cola and McDonald's, who perceive a potential branding conflict.

American-Owned Ad Agency Wins

One day after it was announced McCann Worldgroup UK, the American-owned ad agency will run London 2012’s advertising and marketing campaigns, critics are taking aim over the way the arrangement was handled.

The size of the financial commitment required by the agency is said to have ruled out many smaller, but often more innovative, groups.

“Instead of being a contest to find the agency with the best creative ideas, the LOCOG pitch became something of an auction, with the account going to the highest suitable bidder,” Claire Beale, an advertising industry commentator, wrote in her column in The Independent newspaper.

“For a committee whose creative track record to date centers on the embarrassment of the London 2012 logo, that's quite a risk.”

McCann, which is owned by Interpublic Group of Companies Inc., beat Britain's WPP, the world’s largest ad company, and Chime Communications, which handled LOCOG’s account up to the Beijing Games. It is the first time that marketing services has become a sponsorship category for an Olympic organizing committee. The agency will provide around $14.8 million in services for the rights to use the London 2012 logo, working with the marketing team at LOCOG to develop the overall look and feel of the Games.

LOCOG’s pitch for this deal was led by Chris Townsend, London 2012's commercial director, and Amanda Jennings, the head of brand and marketing. The agreement makes McCann the eighth Tier Three sponsor appointed by London 2012 and the 18th commercial partner overall.

The range of the contract includes advertising (including TV, press, radio, outdoor, online and mobile), direct marketing and digital marketing.

The chairman of McCann Worldgroup UK is Brett Gosper, son of Australian IOC memberKevan Gosper.Commenting on his company’s success in securing the deal, Brett Gosper said in a news release, “The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games form the biggest event that will happen in London and the UK for a generation. We want to help the biggest event become the most memorable, and are thrilled and honored that the full force of McCann Worldgroup in the UK has been chosen as part of the LOCOG team.”

“Ad accounts don't come more prestigious,” Beale said. “This is a real agency-transforming, agenda-setting, career-building opportunity to make history. Not just advertising history, national history, global history.”

Standard Says Sorry

The LOCOG advertising announcement came in the same week that the influential Evening Standard, London’s only paid-for evening newspaper, began a poster campaign on the city’s buses and Tube trains in which it apologizes to Londoners for its previous anti-Olympics editorial stance.

The Standard, owned since the beginning of this year by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev, had previously lobbied against Ken Livingstone and in favor of Boris Johnson, who won the mayoral election a year ago this week. Standard columnists including Peter Jenkins and Andrew Gilligan have also been fierce critics of London’s staging of the Olympics.

The Standard’s “Sorry” ad campaign is run by McCann.

Coe: England Can Win 2018 Soccer World Cup Bid

LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe, regarded as a bid-winning guru in Britain after he managed to turn round London’s Olympic offer, says England’s faltering attempt to stage the 2018 Fifa World Cup can succeed. “My gut says, yes,” Coe said, “but it's going to be a long slog.”

Coe, who joined the bid team earlier this year, said, “If we get the messaging and narrative right, and we work so hard that there is nowhere else to go, then, yes, of course England can win the World Cup bid. But bids deserve nothing. You have to make a compelling case, which resonates in international terms.”

England, which last staged the world’s second biggest international sports event in 1966, is bidding against Spain and Portugal, Russia, Belgium and Holland, Malaysia, Australia and the United States.

It was announced Tuesday that England is also bidding to stage the rugby union World Cup in 2015, with government backing. “England 2015 would be a superb addition to a great decade of sport in Britain,” Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said.

Japan, Italy and South Africa are also expected to present bids to the International Rugby Board in Dublin next week.

UK Sport Backs Down Over Funding Dispute

UK Sport, the government agency that distributes Lottery cash to Britain’s elite athletes, has backed down from its threat to withdraw funding from any potential Olympians who refuse to sign new Team 2012 agreements.

Athletes from all Olympic sports were given until the end of April to sign the deed, which commits them to three appearances a year for commercial sponsors in return for training grants averaging around $50,000 per annum.

The entire cycling, swimming and diving squads refused to sign the document for fear it would jeopardize their own earning potential from individual sponsorships.

Following talks with athletes’ agents, UK Sport is to draft a codicil. “Bearing in mind that there are several hundred athletes who have already signed, we don't want to redraft the deed,” said a spokesman, “but we are happy to provide the extra clarification and explanation.”

Team 2012 is an effort by UK Sport, London 2012 and the British Olympic Association to raise additional commercial cash to plug the $70 million shortfall in public funding for the 2009-2012 performance plan.

British Handball, one of the national governing bodies hit by funding cuts as a consequence, has hired a sports marketing agency to help it raise funds for its qualifying campaign towards the London Games.

Oaks Consultancy, based near Coventry in the English Midlands, has been tasked to raise $2.2 million for the sport. No British team has ever qualified for the Olympic handball tournament.

Written by Steven Downes