The Olympic sponsor headache

Brand and marketing managers in companies like Samsung and Coca-Cola will no doubt be grimacing as the Olympic Torch furore continues. Following angry scenes in London and Paris over the past few days, the route had to be cut down and altered in San Francisco to avoid a repeat performance.

On balance, sponsors probably still reckon that having logo rights when the games are in the world's largest untapped market makes the multi-million dollar spend worthwhile. However, what's likely to give associated brands a headache is activists now zero-ing in on them instead of the Chinese Government.

And thanks to the Internet, this kind of direct action no longer means you need to physically take to the streets. You can do it from the comfort of your home.

A Google search for 'boycott Olympic sponsors' throws up 98,100+ results. And at number one in the search results is an actual website, boycottolympicsponsors.com, which seems to be under construction - although a whois search links the domain name to UK dotcom millionaire Ben Way, an advisor to (and brother of the founder of) citizen news site Newspepper.

Meanwhile over on Facebook, there are 143 groups dedicated to an Olympic boycott, the largest of which has over 13,000 members. Sponsors aren't simply getting it in the neck over Chinese activities in Tibet. In the US, the 'Student Anti-Genocide Coalition' which maintains both a website and facebook group, is pressuring sponsors to pressure the Chinese Government to pressure the Sudanese over Darfur.

As we always tell clients, online activism now allows a relatively small number of people to kick up a very large fuss. One example I always use is a boycott of Kettle Chips (in response to alleged anti-union tactics) organised by 130 people on Facebook which made it into The (UK national newspaper) The Guardian. Ten years ago, would anyone have paid attention to a petition with just over 100 names on it?

Postscript:

American media planner Ben Kunz posts that the torch protests are a textbook lesson in viral marketing:

"The lesson for marketers. You need a crowd (mass behaviour requires a mass), clones (like minded people), nodes (action points) and a signal (a launch signal). The reason most marketers can't launch viral campaigns easily is because they really only control 1 of the 4 ingredients, the signal. Without the crowd in the proper position, chasing the opportunity, the fad won't fly."

Photo - Philippe Leroyer, under a creative commons license.

Update (11 April) - Our trade mag, PR Week leads with the story, 'Agencies warned off putting 'spin' on China', with demos threatened outside the offices of consultancies working for the Chinese Government.

PR Week says the Chinese Embassy here in London has been approached by a number of our competitors interested in freshening up China's image.

According to Matt Whitticase of the Free Tibet Campaign: "Any PR agency that is trying to assist China...would potentially be exposing itself to protests outside its offices."