With the Royal Wedding over and done, there is yet another event that offers promise for UK companies hoping to make an impression: the upcoming London 2012 Olympics. Almost every major corporation in the UK has found a way to tie into the sporting event. The latest Olympic brand and logo comes from mobile phone giant Samsung, which has unveiled a new logo design that celebrates the event while publicizing Samsung’s role as sponsor of the Olympic Torch Relay.
The new logo design features a golden phone with arms outstretched. The London 2012 logo design (the same one that has gotten a great deal of negative press) is on the screen of the telephone, along with Samsung’s company logo and the words ‘Olympic Torch Relay Presenting Partner’. While this would not be a good ‘everyday’ logo, it is fun and appropriate for the sporting event that it represents.
The company has also created a new strapline to complement their Olympic partner brand: Everyone’s Olympic Games. This is intended to give a friendly, inclusive feeling and to stylistically match the open, outstretched arms seen in the logo design. According to company press releases, this Olympic brand is an open invitation to potential UK customers.
What kind of invitation? While this sponsorship should increase UK sales, this is not really the point of the marketing scheme. According to Samsung’s head of global sports marketing, Gyehyun Kwon, the new logo and the increased marketing efforts are not an attempt to add to the company’s rather small UK sales, but to increase brand awareness in the nation. While Samsung is one of the world’s top mobile telephone providers, it nonetheless has had a very low brand awareness in the UK.
Olympic sponsorship is one way to raise awareness. In addition, Olympic sponsorship is not new to the company, which has been associated with the Olympics in some capacity for nearly 25 years. Samsung is also the Olympic Games’ Official Wireless Telecommunications Partner and has been so since 1998.
Samsung is putting a lot of marketing energy into its Olympic brand. Not only has the company developed a special event logo design (known as the SOVIS, or Samsung Olympic Visual Identity System), they have contracted with football player David Beckham to be ‘brand ambassador’ of the London 2012 Samsung brand use.
How is your business celebrating the 2012 London Olympics? While sponsoring major events is too expensive to be a realistic part of the average UK business’s marketing plan, there is no reason not to make Olympic fever a part of your business in some way.
However, it is important to have a UK logo designer or branding consultant work on such a uniquely British project. It should be noted that Samsung had this brand developed by a UK agency. This ensures that your designer understands their audience. If you want to make Olympic celebrations a part of your company marketing, talk to a UK branding consultant about how to take advantage of the fervor of the moment and inject a little Olympic fever into your own business.