Top Story Replay - P&G Sets Standard with London Home for Olympian Families

This story was originally published Aug. 30.

(ATR) Worldwide Olympic sponsor P&G sets the bar high with its London 2012 operation.

Set in a 68,000 square feet brick warehouse in the Borough Market area, the P&G Family Home hosted 68,000 visitors during the Games. Upwards of 400 guests at a time could be accommodated; nearly 150 separate events were held during the Games, about 100 of them specific events for National Olympic Committees.

The center was a big step up from Vancouver, P&G’s first Olympics as a TOP sponsor, where it launched the idea of a venue where mothers (and fathers) of Olympians could hang out during the Games.

"This is really beyond our wildest dreams," Pritchard tells ATR about the Family Home in London.

"We created the Family Home in Vancouver and when they came we realized how beneficial it was not just for them but for the athletes. Then we figured out how our brands could serve them and how beneficial it was to our brands, so then we planned for this and it took on another life of its own," he says.

Open from 11 to 11, the P&G home served buffet-style meals throughout the day and a plethora of services tagged with P&G products.

Click here to view a photodesk tour of the P&G Family Home.

"Athletes and families come here and they’ve got young children so we let them play," P&G Global Marketing chief Marc Pritchard tells Around the Rings in the Pampers Playroom, named after one of the company’s best-known brands.

"Imagine coming to the Olympics which is crazed and you can come here in this little oasis where your children can play. This has been very popular," says Pritchard.

He escorted ATR on a tour of the sprawling facility just before the close of the Games – and its blink-of-an-eye demounting. Crews were on the scene the day after closing ceremony to take apart the center. Furniture, accessories, other items were carted to an east London warehouse where items were donated to community groups.

A beauty salon featured hair and nail care using Cover Girl, Pantene and Max Factor products, one of the most popular spots in the center.

In a so-called "man cave", pool tables, video games, foosball, darts and big-screen TVs were the draw. Barber chairs offered haircuts and shaves using Gillette razors and Old Spice lotions.

"Our activation with Gillette, that’s been one of our best brands to activate. They even created a special gold razor for this. We gave Ryan Lochte and the swimmers gold plated razors with encrusted crystal," says Pritchard.

Laundry services were also welcomed by the families. More than 1,000 loads were handled during the Games, using Tide and Downy laundry products.

P&G’s Duracell battery line figured into charging station for mobile phones. Need to brush your teeth? There was a place for that with Oral-B dental products and Crest toothpaste.

P&G also sponsored the operation of a dental clinic in the Olympic Village as well as a hair care salon in both the village and the Main Press Centre. Besides those locations, P&G also offered services to Olympian families at Casa Italia, Canada House and the Team GB house.

When measured by these activities on the ground clearly P&G was at the head of the sponsor pack with its activation in the Olympic City.

Pritchard says Sochi in 2014 is next.

"We will definitely do this again we think we really found a formula that works because whether it be the Winter or Summeror Youth Games. People want to come here and be with their families and we want to be able to celebrate the athletes and serve the moms, so this works," he says.

Discussions are underway with Rio for a center in 2016, but Pritchard says "there’s still a lot of work to do".

Speaking of work, Pritchard says that despite the effort that went into the Family Home in London, it was a cost-effective exercise.

"What we did, was we essentially took an existing facility and just decorated it to a large extent, put brands in and put employees that are going to work anyway.

"We used it as a place to create awareness and we drive public relations out of here. We have two newsrooms, pumping out press activities and huge social media and broadcast relations.

"We have a great relationship with NBC, Tencent in China, with BBC. We’ve created probably close to 1 billion impressions a day around here. It was a really good opportunity for us," said Pritchard.

While the Family Home is not open for the Paralympics, P&G is helping athlete families in other ways. Salon services are available for them at another London location, as well as for the athletes in the Paralympic Village.

U.S. athlete families are also receiving Visa gift cards with $1,000 loaded on them to help defray costs of travel to London.

P&G also has announced a grant of $50,000 to fund youth sports programs targeting children with physical disabilities in the U.S.

Written and reported in London by Ed Hula.

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