Samsung unveils Olympic goals

[metroXpress]

Samsung unveils Olympic goals



DAVID EBNER

VANCOUVER — From Wednesday's Globe and Mail, Wednesday, Jun. 24, 2009 05:25AM EDT

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the mobile phone sponsor of the Olympics, has pinned its marketing for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games on hockey, and will use three of the sport's best-known names - Wayne Gretzky, Jarome Iginla and Hayley Wickenheiser - to sell its message.

For the South Korean company, which owns the No. 2 mobile phone brand in the world and No. 1 in Canada, the strategy is using "national heroes" to bolster its name and deepen emotional connections with customers, said Gyehyun Kwon, vice-president of worldwide sports marketing at Samsung. For the Beijing Games in 2008, Samsung put its name behind China's gymnastics team.

The challenge for Samsung and all companies that employ athletes to sell products is to do more than just put their names or faces in TV commercials or on billboards. As the Olympic marketing machine kicks into high gear, it may become difficult for conventional Games advertising to stand out, marketing experts contend.

So Samsung, which has worked with Mr. Gretzky for several years, is planning a nationwide contest to fill slots in a "Team Samsung" hockey clinic for children, to be coached by the hockey great. The company will also put its name on a hockey camp for underprivileged kids that Mr. Iginla has proposed, and will support a hockey tournament for girls that Ms. Wickenheiser is organizing.

At the Olympics, Samsung plans to a build a two-storey marketing pavilion in a downtown Vancouver park. And it will use the hockey players to host dinners for clients during the Games.

"The biggest mistake companies make when they get athletes, they collect them, but they don't utilize them," said Bob Stellick of consultancy Stellick Marketing Communications Inc.

The personal touches will be underpinned by an aggressive media campaign. Samsung will include Mr. Iginla and Ms. Wickenheiser - who are favoured to be members of the Canadian men's and women's hockey teams - in the company's first-ever television commercial made specifically for Canada. Samsung also recently signed a large deal to broadcast its message on television and online with CTV, the official Olympics broadcaster. (CTV is owned by CTVglobemedia Inc., which also owns The Globe and Mail.)

The combination of plans is crucial to avoid "potential clutter" in a flurry of Olympics-related marketing, said Keith McIntyre, president of sports marketing consultancy K. Mac & Associates.

Mr. Kwon credited Samsung's Olympics sponsorship with its recent market share gains. On a global basis, Samsung's share of the mobile phone market was 17.8 per cent in the first quarter of this year, up from 16.2 per cent in early 2008, before the Beijing Olympics. The market leader is still Nokia Corp. at 36.2 per cent, down from 38.6 in 2008, as Samsung, Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion Ltd. and Apple Inc. made gains.

Companies should be "selective" if they want to most effectively capitalize on sponsorships of athletes, said Loring Phinney, vice-president of Olympic and corporate marketing at Bell Canada, another Olympics sponsor and seller of Samsung phones.

Bell doesn't use its athletes - such as speed skater Clara Hughes - in TV ads. The company uses them at publicity and product events. Most of all, Mr. Phinney said, the athletes are used behind the scenes to motivate employees, speaking about overcoming adversity and achieving results.

"It's powerful," Mr. Phinney said.

Yesterday, with the talk of hockey, there was also chatter about winning a gold medal. While the Canadian women's team has delivered two golds and a silver in the past three Olympics, the men's team won gold in 2002 but finished without a medal in 1998 and 2006.

Samsung is working to make sure its marketing spending pays off, regardless of the results on the ice. But it wouldn't hurt to see Mr. Iginla and Ms. Wickenheiser with gold medals around their necks at the end of the Olympics.

"It's pretty obvious that there's an insatiable appetite in Canada right now, after the men's team lost in Torino [in 2006], that the weight of the world is on the players to win gold," said Howard Thomas, Samsung's director of corporate marketing for the Olympics.

"If that happens, we would have an even greater opportunity than we have now, but our strategy and plans aren't dependent on that."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/samsung-unveils-olympic-goals/article1194735/