Subway leads all brands at Sochi Olympics

A lot of people think the Olympics are about the athletes. They’re wrong. The Olympics are all about brands. If you find that assertion troubling, you can rest easy because corporations are people, at least in the good ol’ U.S.A., so rooting for a corporate brand to succeed is pretty much just like cheering for a skier to wind up on the podium.

The Global Language Monitor published an interesting study this week analyzing the marketing component of the Sochi Olympics. The GLA used a metric called the Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) to compare how official Olympic sponsors — companies like Coca-Cola, Samsung, and McDonald’s — are stacking up against non-affiliated marketers  — companies like Subway, Red Bull, and Rolex — in terms of how closely their brands are associated with the Games. (The encroachment of non-affiliated brands into the Olympic realm is known as “ambush marketing.”)

So what has the GLA observed so far? Well, it appears Subway is crushing the competition thanks to a BAI of 222.35. Other non-affiliated brands such as Philips and Siemens AG are out-performing official Olympic sponsors like GE and McDonald’s. Nike, normally a strong performer, is lagging behind the competition with a lowly BAI of 24.18.

You can check out the GLA’s BAI assessment at their website. The current rankings reflect how various brands did turning the first week of competition, and a second assessment will be conducted once the Games conclude.

Go brands!

[Source: Global Language Monitor]