While the Super Bowl is big for advertisers, the Olympics are also a coveted time for companies. Current State’s Emanuele Berry spoke with Rajeev Batra, a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan. He is an expert in global branding and advertising and explains what it means to be an Olympic sponsor.Batra says that to be a sponsor, a company will pay theInternational Olympic Committee a large sum of cash and supplies, which could be up to $50-million. In return, they have rights to use their sponsorship in advertising and are globally recognized as a result.
There are awareness building benefits for some sponsors, but most of the companies are already well known. These companies benefit by having their brand associated with the values that the Olympics are known for, like friendship and respect.