Olympics: Jittery sponsors stay loyal to China, but worry in private

Olympics: Jittery sponsors stay loyal to China, but worry in private
March 28, 2008
from AFP

BEIJING (AFP) — Big corporations are still loyal backers of the Beijing Olympics, looking beyond boycott calls and protests over Tibet, Darfur and human rights to their long term interests in China.
Firms such as Coca-Cola, Visa, Volkswagen and Adidas are jittery about the bad news swirling around the Games but are even more worried about offending Beijing's rulers, according to experts.
"The Chinese government is the gatekeeper to 1.3 billion potential consumers so they are choosing their words carefully," said Damien Ryan, a Hong Kong-based media advisor with Ryan Financial Communications.
"Nobody wants to say a word that could be used against them down the road."
As recently as three months ago the Beijing Olympics looked like a win-win marketing dream for the world's top companies who fought tooth and nail, and paid tens of millions of dollars, for the right to sponsor the event.
The opportunities remain dazzling in a country where the consumer base is measured in hundreds of millions, but suddenly the companies find themselves in a position where they have to explain themselves.
"The line so far is that the Olympics are a force for good and sponsors are part of that change for good," said Ryan.
But sponsors have been unable to deflect pressure from campaign groups who are urging them to bring pressure to bear on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and on the Beijing Games organisers.
Group such as the Students for a Free Tibet, which want the IOC to reroute the torch relay to eliminate the Tibet leg, are planning to launch grass roots campaigns targeting sponsors.
Dream for Darfur, an organisation set up to pressure China into helping end the bloodshed in the western Sudanese region, has also urged Olympic sponsors to speak out publicly on the issue.
Those who fail to do so will face "intensive advocacy," that may include demonstrations at corporate headquarters, said Jill Savitt, the group's director.
Coca-Cola, Samsung and computer maker Lenovo, which are sponsors of the torch relay in addition to being top Olympic sponsors, and other firms have shown no signs of wavering publicly on their backing for the event or the Games themselves.
Coca-Cola said in a statement it was "inappropriate" for sponsors to comment on the political situation of individual nations and that it "firmly believed the Olympics are a force for good."
"We remain committed to supporting the torch relay, which provides a unique opportunity to share the Olympic values of unity, pride and inspiration with people all over the world," the firm added.
Adidas, another veteran Olympic sponsor, expressed concern about Tibet and also addressed boycott calls.
"We are concerned about the recent situation in Tibet. We hope that the situation will calm down very soon," the firm said in a statement.
"We believe that a boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games would be counter-productive and we have therefore reiterated our commitment to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games."
Privately, however, firms are worried, according to western marketing experts in Beijing.
They have appointed crisis management teams, increased their budgets for media consultants, and have been talking privately to the Beijing Olympic organising committee, which has invited sponsors to Beijing for talks later this month
At least one multinational sponsor is considering cutting its budget for Olympic-related marketing in the west because it fears a possible consumer backlash there, where opposition to China's Tibet crackdown is high.
The sponsors have also become more conciliatory towards human rights and other groups.
Last year, multinational Olympic sponsors refused to meet with Dream for Darfur representatives.
That has changed. Savitt and Hollywood actress Mia Farrow, the organisation's founder, have been meeting with sponsors for the past week in the United States.
Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said big firms were also "much more open to meeting with us and hearing from us."
"We have told them that there are high reputational risks to be associated with any event that takes place in a one party dictatorship," he said.