From the Opening Ceremony on 23rd July through the second weekend of competition (1st August), over $25M in brand sponsorship value has been generated by the athletes, teams, NOCs, and governing bodies on social media. Naturally, the IOC has led the value creation, accounting for over 10% of the total. However, value has come from all types of sports, countries, and competitors. While broadcast TV viewership has seen its lowest ratings in 33 years, down 27% compared to Rio 2016, the Olympics are thriving on social media. In total, the participants and organizers of the Olympics have over 1.6 Billion followers and posts about the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have collected nearly 3 Billion fan engagements.

Note: all data from 23 July, 2021 – 1 August, 2021

Brand Rankings

When it comes to total sponsorship value AAV received during the first 10 days of Olympic competition, the top 3 brands, Nike, Adidas, & Asics, are all apparel suppliers of NOCs, not Olympic TOP partners

Top 3 brands by Sponsorship Value AAV

Brand

# Branded Posts Interactions + Video Views on Branded Posts Avg. Promotion Quality Top Promoter
Nike 10.5k 400M 11% FIBA 3×3
Adidas 7.7k 210M 10.7% Team GB
Asics 3.0k 115M 13.1%

Brazil Volleyball

Together, these 3 brands have received over $9M in AAV, 3x more than the 3 Olympic TOP sponsors combined with the most AAV. The 3 top Olympic partners by AAV were Omega, Toyota, & Visa.

Top 3 Olympic TOP partner brands by Sponsorship Value AAV

Brand

# Branded Posts Interactions + Video Views on Branded Posts Avg. Promotion Quality Top Promoter
Omega 1.2k 40M 22.7% IOC
Toyota 1.4k 35M

18.8%

Alexa Moreno
Visa 0.4k 43M 26.2%

IOC

One clearly noticeable difference between the apparel brands and the TOP partners is the volume of branded posts for each brand. Even the lowest of the 3 apparel brands, Asics, received over double the number of branded posts that Toyota, the highest of the TOP partners, received. However, the quality of promotion for the TOP partners is nearly double on average compared to that of the apparel suppliers. This is no surprise as the apparel logos appear on uniforms throughout and can be smaller or obscured. Non-official Olympic partner brands can only be mentioned once per athlete, reducing the deliberate promotion (and thus, promotion quality) these brands can receive. TOP partner posts, on the other hand, included larger logos and deliberate promotion is allowed and encouraged by the IOC, giving these brands the advantage. Below, we dive into what brand activations, placements, and campaigns have worked so far.

Successful Campaigns / Activations / Placements

 

Toyota | Excellent Promotion From Athletes

#1 – Most Deliberate Branded Posts
#1 – Most Engagement on Deliberate Branded Posts
#1 – Most Deliberate Sponsorship Value AAV

Keys To Success
Athlete partners & Facebook videos

Details
The most engaged posts featuring Toyota have come from their sponsored athletes and Olympic team partners. It is clear that Toyota helped their #TeamToyota athletes tell their own stories as they align with Toyota’s slogan during the Olympics of #StartYourImpossible. For example, this post by Mexican gymnast Alexa Moreno and this post by Puerto Rican table tennis player Adriana Diaz share the athlete’s narrative and gratitude to Toyota for supporting their dreams to get to the Olympics. Similarly, this post by Hsing-Chun Kuo, Chinese Taipei weightlifting gold-medalist, details how Toyota supported her dreams for the past 2 years in the lead up to the Games. These kinds of detailed partnership posts are reserved for Olympic TOP partners and Toyota has taken advantage of the opportunity.

 

BioSteel Sports | Excellent Branding From Single Partner

#1 – Avg. Promotion Quality (min. 10 posts)

Keys To Success
Partnership with U.S. Soccer

Details
In February 2021, the beverage challenger brand partnered with US Soccer, including the Men’s and Women’s National teams. With the Women entering the Olympics as the Gold Medal favorites, all eyes were on US Soccer. Throughout the tournament, US Soccer and the USWNT accounts have activated a BioSteel campaign featuring the “Five Things To Know about” the next opponent. This direct promotional post brought home BioSteel’s message to those unfamiliar with the brand. 

Though BioSteel had the highest average promotion quality among brands promoted so far during the Olympics with at least 10 posts, most of the posts happened on Twitter, the platform that traditionally sees the lowest engagement. This leaves BioSteel with an opportunity to work with their US Soccer partners to pivot these promoted posts to Instagram or Facebook, where US Soccer has 3x or 30x more followers, respectively.

 

Omega | Excellent Background Placement

#1 – AAV To Olympic Partner Through Incidental Promotion

Keys To Success
Strategic placement of Omega logos

Details
Seemingly, behind every gold medalist in the pool was an Omega logo. See Adam Peaty, Tatjana Schoenmaker, and Caeleb Dressel. But, the Omega branding wasn’t  just in the pool. It was at the track, the tennis court, and in the gymnastics center, all among the sports with the most fan engagement on social media. Though it may have gone unnoticed in a post here or there, the continued logo exposure for the watch brand cemented its place as the #1 Olympic TOP sponsor by sponsorship value AAV.

Want to know more about which brands are doing well and why during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics? Contact us at insights@hookit.com.