Five Things the IOC Can Learn From the #SelfieOlympics – Tim Crow
February 10, 2014
In early 2012, to denote the collision between mass-adoption social media and the Olympics, Synergy coined the term ‘Socialympics’, which subsequently went viral (even being adopted by the IOC), and staged two panel sessions in front of invited audiences either side of London 2012 to discuss the Socialympics phenomenon. (If you missed them, you can find a round-up of Socialympics 1 here and Socialympics 2 here).
Fast forward to the days leading up to Sochi 2014, the first big internet meme of 2014 was the #SelfieOlympics, which has seen teens and young adults compete to top one another with selfies which vary from the extreme to the bizarre and everything in between.
I can’t say that we predicted the #SelfieOlympics back in our 2012 Socialympics sessions (now that would have been something), but I can say that we focused on an issue highlighted by the #SelfieOlympics: the enormous potential of social media to help the IOC address one of its biggest challenges – making the Olympics relevant and accessible to teens and young adults, and reverse the ageing Olympic demographic worldwide.
So, here’s five things I’d suggest that the IOC and the Olympic Movement could learn from the #SelfieOlympics about marketing to the young.
1. The young get ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’. For any brand manager that would be good news: for the IOC, in a world full of brands with much bigger budgets competing for the young’s attention and understanding, it’s amazing news.
2. If you want the young to get into your brand, above all let them have some fun with it. This is not natural territory for the IOC, which has a tendency to be over-worthy, but it’s territory they need to embrace.
3. Your best marketers are your consumers. If the next generation is capable of spontaneously creating and spreading an idea as entertaining and viral as the #SelfieOlympics, who knows what else they can come up with? Invite them to play around some more with your brand.
4. If you want to market the Olympics to the young, think beyond sport. The #SelfieOlympics has done as much for the Olympic brand with the young as the Youth Olympic Games, which hasn’t ever come close to going viral.
5. If the Olympic brand can go viral in this way once, it can do it again. The IOC and its stakeholders can make this happen: start with athletes posting #SelfieOlympics pics at Sochi, say.
The Synergy blog is available here
Tim Crow joined Synergy in 1999 and was appointed CEO in 2007.
He has advised brands in most major categories and worked in over 50 countries worldwide. Synergy’s clients include BMW, Bupa, Capital One, Coca-Cola, Diageo, RBS and SSE.
Prior to joining Synergy he worked at the Mirror Group, the Test & County Cricket Board (now the England & Wales Cricket Board) and an international sports and outdoor advertising business.
Tim is a Business Leader of the Marketing Society and a frequent contributor to the national & international media on sponsorship.
Tim’s 
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