Facing Up To The Facebook Generation

IMG’s Sebastian Smith provides an insight into how the Beijing Games is embracing the age of digital media…

Beijing 2008 is shaping up to be the most watched Games in history, both on Television and Online.

While the spectacular Opening Ceremony lived up to all of its advance publicity to captivate one of the biggest audiences ever to watch a single television programme, and the almost super-human achievements of Michael Phelps helped ensure massive interest worldwide, the reasons for the global engagement with events in Beijing go beyond spectacle and performance.

Digital Games

Beijing 2008 will be remembered as the first Olympic Games with a true digital dimension, a Games in which audiences were liberated from the technical straightjacket of traditional broadcasting and allowed to watch pretty much what they wanted, where they liked and at a time which suited them.

From the ‘red button’ facility on digital television to services delivered to mobile phones, anybody with access to the technology can claim to have the best seat in the house. This is important for a number of reasons but none of them is more crucial than the ability of digital media to bring young people into the Games. 

Research shows us that while the average age of an Olympic competitor is 24, the average Olympic television viewer is now 46 years old. This ageing audience profile is indeed worrying and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has acknowledged that if youngsters do not engage with the Games, the future of the Olympic movement is under threat. In all honesty, the move to blanket digital coverage can’t happen fast enough.

That’s why the IOC’s pragmatic policy of assigning digital media rights where they can’t be sold but can achieve the greatest impact is vital. Games video is now available on YouTube in India, Nigeria and other territories where there is no significant television deal in place.

Every trend survey of recent years tells us that young people are very different consumers of media to their parents’ generation. They have diminishing interest in the ‘editor curated’ output of  regular television, and more interest in the on demand access offered by digital media and the opportunity to use the same media  to talk about the content with friends through blogs and social networking sites.

By positioning the Games in digital space, The IOC is ensuring that the Games is available in the media space most frequently occupied by younth, and in doing so have the best opportunity to become part of the daily lexicon of young people worldwide.

Any event, Any medium, Any time

From the vantage point of  the 24/7 digital Games of 2008 it’s hard to imagine that only eight years ago the IOC was taking its first hesitant steps towards recognising and harnessing the power of digital media. Back then, around 1,000 of the most influential people in sports administration, broadcasting, media and marketing gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the IOC Conference on Sport and New Media. It was, in its way, a ground-breaking event which allowed the IOC and its partners to begin to develop the digital policy which has continued to evolve over the years.

What we are seeing in Beijing is the fruit of those careful deliberations. It’s a Games the world can share at home, in the office, in the bar or – if you happen to be in Beijing itself – even on a subway train.

But the importance of the digital dimension goes way beyond simply creating additional choice or further access to video footage and data from the 3,600 or so hours of Olympic action which will be recorded. It’s about transforming the experience.

NBCOlympics.com provides the most powerful example of how a simple idea can revolutionize an audience’s consumption of content.  Powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, the site features high-quality live and on-demand video and a treasure trove of enhanced data and information.  NBCOlympics.com really breaks ground with the ‘control room’ feature, which enables users to simultaneously view multiple video streams, see picture-in-picture views, switch between different feeds, and truly customise their online viewing experience.     

Breaking Records

NBC and the BBC are among the media companies which have most enthusiastically and creatively activated their digital rights, offering unparalleled choice of live action, highlights and analysis across a range of platforms. And according to Roger Mosey, Director of BBC Sport, not only did the BBC’s online coverage record more traffic in the first two days of the Beijing Games than in the entire two weeks of Athens 2004, but 4.4m unique users accessed the site on the first Monday of the games, a massive 1m of these accessing live streams.

In the USA, NBC’s website  attracted 4.2 million unique users on the Friday of the Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony. The following Monday, when America returned to work  and sat in front of the office PC,  that figure rose to 7.8 million as fans followed Michael Phelps’ success in the pool. 

The figures speak for themselves. Digital media is transforming the Olympic experience and playing a role in safeguarding the future of the Greatest Show on Earth. It is also presenting a huge portfolio of fresh opportunities for commercial partners to engage with audiences in new and effective ways.

Understand the platforms

Engaging the ‘Facebook’ generation is also critical to many of the communications strategies of its partners and Angela Kyle, commercial director of IMG’s Digital Media Group, believes that Beijing 2008 provides indications of the paths which partners must travel in order to make the youth connection.

“We are working with all of our clients on rolling out strategies that target youth audiences and the IOC is by no means alone in this,” she said.

She and her team work with some of the biggest names in global sport including Manchester United, Wimbledon (AELTC) and the PGA European Tour, and are immersed in the nuances of the fast-changing digital world.

“While digital media provides a route to this audience it is not, in itself, a guarantee of making a connection.  We know that you have you have to think creatively and strategically and to really understand the diverse offerings on different digital platforms, and how the audience relates to them and uses them.”

Clearly there are no one-size-fits-all solutions in the digital world and trends emerge and develop so quickly that it can be difficult to keep pace from the outside.  While social networking  was in is nascent phase during the Athens Games just four years ago,  its’s integral to the lives of many people today. Naturally, understanding the why and how people relate to and use social networking sites is vital to marketers.

Understanding how the nature of users of Facebook, Beebo and MySpace differ is key is to be able to craft strategies which are relevant and appropriate to the platform.
Angela Kyle and her colleagues understand that the medium is about personal connection and to make it work from a marketing perspective requires a strategy based on that understanding.

If you are a sports federation or NGB, it might make sense to invest in building a MySpace page around a marquee event, but overall, that medium is personality-driven, and to make it work requires a strategy based on that.

Youth Connection

Young people can be cynical about messaging and the way it is executed.  Anything in this space which is too slick or too obviously endorsed by brands won’t work or could be actively damaging to a brand. Executions need to be based on an understanding of how Youths live in these spaces and they have to be authentic.

According to Kyle, one of the Games partners to demonstrating an understanding of how to use the digital media to connect to youth is McDonalds.

They have invested in creating original content and enhancing engagement by encouraging user-generated content to create  ‘Face The Glory,’ a feature which uses mash-up technology to allow users to create images of themselves as a BMX rider. The images get e-mailed to friends and the viral effect draws more and more people to the site to have a go themselves. Ultimately though, the site’s success will likely be defined by user ratings and traffic, not originality and engagement.

Deciding to go with BMX – a first time Olympic sport with tremendous appeal to youngsters – was an important decision and  is indicative of making a real effort to tap into this audience by finding out what content they want and discovering ways of making it more interesting.

“The key is investing in original content and applications that enhance the audience’s experience of the Games in the digital space,” Kyle says. “We also see good examples in the Games Galleries run by Coca Cola and initiatives such as ASICS’ Marathon Heroes which features Olympic runners and their training routines.  That feature is syndicated on YouTube in order to maximise its audience.”

Digital Future

It’s clear then that digital media is, in many respects, the key to the future of the Games. It has the power to engage a new generation of fans and provide commercial partners with the means of creating and leveraging effective dialogue.

On Sunday evening Mayor of London Boris Johnson will accept the Olympic standard from his Beijing counterpart, signalling the hand-over of responsibility for the Games, sparking the Visa Handover Party celebrations in the heart of London. The party, which will feature a stellar cast of bands and celebrities, will be shared across the country through BBC broadcasts, a network of Giant Screens in public places and significantly, online as well. The screens are designed to encourage celebration of 2012 across GB rather than exclusively in London, although it seems digital media will play the real starring role in circulating the Olympic spirit around the isles.

Beijing 2008 may go down in history as the first digital Games and introduced millions of people to the Olympics through digital media, but we’re really just at the beginning with the potential for digital media and an event like the Olympics. The sheer scale of the event, the volume of content, and the multiplicity of storylines presents such an exciting opportunity for media and technology companies to push the envelope and find new ways of bringing the games to audiences worldwide.