News
Communicating London's bid for the Olympics
Thu, Jul 14 2005
The International Olympic Committee met in Singapore on 6 July to name the city that will host the 2012 Olympics. London, as we know was chosen ahead of Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow.
Alistair Smith (alistairofamsdesign@btinternet.com) looks at the massive communication campaign that was mounted in support of the London bid.
It was the selling job to end all selling jobs and we we’re only second favourites with a mountain to climb.
That was the communication task faced by the London 2012 Olympics team in a tough modern world of instant news, glossy magazines and flashy websites.
Five cities competed for the greatest honour in the sporting world – and in London they left no stone unturned and nothing to chance in the bid for ultimate success.
They had to communicate not just to Britain and its public, but also to the world – selling the ideas, the romance, the promises, the beliefs and the glory. This will happen. Believe in us.
It’s no easy task, but a team of dedicated professionals set about it with the aim of reaching that ultimate goal and bringing the Olympics and Paralympics to London in seven years’ time.
Strategy
Their main, far-reaching, worldwide strategy – just like their competitors – was based on the internet. A website tells it all, painting a picture of how London will surpass all others in presenting the show of shows in 2012.
It reveals how the best will be bettered and how the face of a city will be changed forever to meet the glories of international sportsmanship. How the austere and traditional looking Horse Guard’s Parade in Whitehall will host beach volleyball and the hallowed Lord’s cricket ground will see archers at the wicket aiming for a bulls-eye rather than a six.
It shows how stadiums will be built, athletes accommodated and people transported daily to witness the spectaculars – and at the end of it all, how London will be left a wonderful legacy for decades to come.
It was a communications task second to none. But the challenge was tackled with guts and determination by the team in their Canary Wharf headquarters.
From the all-encompassing website through to the two-sided newsletter, it was all there in a rich information smorgasbord. Tell, sell and give it hell – we’re going to win!
Effort
So what exactly did this communication effort involve?
Well, in addition to the website (of which more later) there were other pieces of paperless communication put into play.
Eight iconic buildings on the River Thames – such as Big Ben, The London Eye and Tower Bridge, were lit up dramatically with ‘Back the Bid’ projections in a wonderful light show when members of the Evaluation Commission from the International Olympic Committee visited in March.
Film had its place as well as part of this visual stimulation to get the message over – with four contributions.
One award-winning promotional film about London 2012 Sport at Heart featured a female runner on a journey through London, showcasing many of the city's world famous tourist landmarks. The runner made her way around London, inspiring ordinary people to transform their everyday activities into sport.
Living the Dream
A second award-winning film “Living the Dream” was designed to make Londoners consider the benefits of hosting the 2012 Games by focusing on the ambitions of east London schoolchildren.
On a slightly different theme, the world famous London Marathon in April was used as the focus for a picture with a difference – marathon runners making a giant figure 80 at Tower Bridge – to signify that there were just 80 days to go before the big vote.
Special posters throughout London’s famous underground also formed a part of the overall message strategy to sell the two sets of Games to the public. Buses and taxis in the capital added to the Back the Bid message.
But these individual and different ways of communicating still took second place to the core publications and the ever-alive website.
The first basic two-sided A4 newsletter, entitled “Bid Bulletin”, came in June 2004 to mark London being short-listed as an official Candidate City – and that was followed by three more in October, December (to mark 20 12 day on December 20) and the last one this March, marking the visit of the Olympic inspectors.
By far the most outstanding and eye-catching of the printed material, published in November of last year, was the “Make Britain Proud” A4 horizontal magazine with an introduction from Tony Blair translated into Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Turkish, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Chinese, French, Somali and Spanish.
It continued with a whole series of inspiring photographs, images and graphics inter-wound with words to show what a Games in London in 2012 would be like – the greatest ever sporting event.
You could see the new stadium come to life and picture runners and riders passing Buckingham Palace and other famous landmarks.
There was also passing mention of the out-of-city football events at five major stadiums, as well as sailing off the south coast – but it is the London Olympics and London is where it will nearly all happen.
Transport
The magazine went on to focus on the transport plans – with the promise of trains every 15 seconds running into the new Olympic Park at Stratford – details of the accommodation and feeding plans for more than 5,000 athletes, all of which made absolutely fascinating reading.
Job opportunities, the business benefits and the superb legacy the Games would leave, all featured prominently in this outstanding magazine which you can download to read from the 2012 website at www.london2012.org/en/news/publications/
The other major ‘brochure’ produced was “Vision for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games”, which aimed to inspire Londoners – from individuals through to corporate sponsors – to Back the Bid back at the start of 2004. It gave a first vision of what it will be like in 2012.
Probably not as inspirational as the main brochure, it is still an excellent piece of communication and at one point takes a quick glance back to spotlight the last London Olympics in 1948.
A third publication was the bid’s environmental offering – “Towards a One Planet Olympics”. It focused, as the title suggests, on ‘Achieving the first sustainable Olympic Games and Paralympic Games’ looking at how London 2012 will respect the environment and its ecology.
For the communications team you add all the official bid documents, the daily press enquiries, press releases that come thick and fast, pictures to organise, press conferences to set up, bid events to stage…
And then add that all-encompassing web site – complete with a clock ticking down to July 6, decision day. A place for every individual in Britain to register their support and have their ‘minute of fame’ if they want by showing they Back the Bid.
It’s a place to register as a volunteer, to follow the action, see who has signed the London 2012 flag, who are corporate sponsors, download a screensaver, send an e-card, get schools involved, buy some official London 2012 merchandise or get a free car sticker.
It is mass communication on a scale almost certainly never seen before, to get a simple message over: We are London and we want to win.
There is lots more I would have liked to know about the background to the communications for the bid, to the strategy behind it and the planning but, not surprisingly, the press office were not really able to help in the run-up to the big decision day on July 6.
Pressure
The under-pressure communicators in Canary Wharf did, however, offer an insight into their priorities as they turned down my request for information: “I am afraid we are going to have to turn down this request at present due to the workload we have – we have so much to do within these last few months that we now have to focus on international activity in order to achieve our goal,” they told me.
David Magliano, London 2012's marketing director, speaking at a film award ceremony said: "Our marketing aims to capture the public's imagination … now we must convince the International Olympic Committee that London is the right choice for 2012."
And as double Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe, now Lord Coe and chairman of the London bid put it: “I am fully committed to making London 2012 the best ever Games.”
No one can ever say the communications weren’t focused, of the very highest standard or that they employed every tactic imaginable to get the message across.
Now victory is ours.
CiB member and proud supporter Lang Communications were responsible for putting together the UK's bid document for the 2012 Olympics. CiB members can read all about it in the July 2005 edition of Communicators magazine.
Alistair Smith (alistairofamsdesign@btinternet.com) is an NCTJ-qualified journalist. He has written news articles and features for local, evening and national newspapers as well as many in-house publications during a career spanning more than 35 years. A Council member and former CiB national chairman, he now works as a freelance writer and designer.
© Copyright CiB 2005