The Olympic Games started last week in Tokyo, a year behind schedule, to a muted opening ceremony to mark the times.
In empty stadiums, athletes in swimming, gymnastics, soccer, handball, tennis and hockey among others competed hard never the less.
During the Cold War the Olympics also had a subtheme, the competition between capitalism and socialism. The Olympics was used as a big propaganda exercise, winning the most medals was meant to show to the world which was the more successful system.
That rivalry between the west and east is much toned down now and thankfully so, as we can now focus on the athletes performance without being distracted by weighty issues of geopolitics.
But the branding value of the Olympics for competing nations has not gone away. Starting with hosts Japan. This is the second time the Japanese capital hosts the sporting bonanza, the last time being in 1964, when the games were beamed live around the world for the first time. In better times the Olympics would be a show of organisational and technological advancement for the host nation. This time it may be a show of how Japan is able to host the Olympics in the midst of a pandemic.
The US is the biggest team as usual, flying in over 600 athletes. Russian athletes are not competing under their flag following a two year ban imposed on the country for drug doping infringements. However athletes not involved in the doping scandal are competing as The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
Countries and corporate entities put a lot of weight on the performance of their athletes, as they should.
"A brand, personal, corporate or national is built on four pillars – awareness, association, experience and loyalty. They basically follow in that order....
There is no brand if no one knows about it. So winning athletes raise the awareness of nations. One of the best stories of the games so far was of freestyle swimmer Ahmed Hafnaoui who upset the form book to win gold in the 400 meters freestyle, suddenly online searches for Tunisia went through the roof and Ahmed’s following on social media exploded. You will be shocked how many people out there can not point out Uganda on a map of the world, leave alone Africa.
Some may brush this aside as unimportant, but if you think about it why do you buy the groceries you do or shop from the shops you do or hire one mechanic and not the other? It starts with knowing them. As a country, company or person, being known is where the branding process begins.
Following on from being known is what the brand is associated with. Believe it or not Uganda continues to be associated with Idi Amin, it does not help that now Netflix has a docuseries with Amin squarely in the middle of it. The US, which has arguably the highest level of violent and organised crime and history of systemic racism is known more for other things – democracy and business. Their winners in the Olympics enhance the brighter side of the US. So having a dark past does not necessarily doom your brand.
Events like the Olympics create awareness and promote positive associations about countries. To experience or feel loyalty for those countries you would have to go there, the Olympics does little to help with that.
So for the US, which will be competing to top the medal table, the Olympics will cement the perception of world dominance. For China, ROC and the EU countries will look to place strongly too as a way to improve their perception as serious players on the world stage. Countries like South Africa, Tunisia, Kenya and even Uganda by winning will improve the perception that they are doing good things in their countries and deserve a second look.
The hardnosed bean counters will be rolling their eyes at the idea that national brands have even a passing effect on GDP, but they will be shocked.
It is not true that if you build it they will come.
"You can have the most green environment, the greatest number of animal species and still only manage a million tourists a year like Uganda, while the city of Miami – a concrete jungle and the most violent city in the US attracts at last count, six million tourists a year....
As an example the most visited places are better branded – more people are aware of them and have positive associations attached to them.
For the individual athletes the Olympics is a test of their prowess and offers a hope of an improvement in their lives if they do well – that means they will be more widely known. For nations it will increase their profile and the positive associations surrounding them.
But that is half the work. The real work in brand building is that when you have made the brand known and created some positive associations it matters that you work hard at making sure the experience of the country matches or exceeds the associations created...
I am a tourist, I have seen Stephen Kiprotich, Julius Cheptegei, Winnie Nanyondo and Halimah Nakaayi win on the world stage, so when I come to Uganda I am expecting the basics -- safety, comfort and convenience otherwise my experience will be soured and brand Uganda suffers. It is all connected.
So
"going to the Olympics should be more than cobbling together a bunch of athletes and sending them off with a hope and prayer, it should be seen in the context of a national branding strategy....
One interesting thing about the Olympics, or more specifically the US Olympic team – the US has no sports ministry.
