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The Global Language Monitor Has Released the Official Ambush Marketing Rankings for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

 

This is Global Language Monitor’s Eighth Consecutive Olympic Ambush Marketing Rankings.

AUSTIN, TX, UNITED STATES, August 4, 2021 — The Global Language Monitor (GLM) has released the Official Ambush Marketing Rankings for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. GLM has found that the Top Olympic Partners and their ambushers are virtually tied according to their Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) scores.

The Top Olympic Partners for Tokyo 2020 follow:

  • Alibaba
  • Airbnb.
  • Atos.
  • Bridgestone.
  • Coca-Cola.
  • Dow.
  • General Electric.
  • Intel.
  • Panasonic.
  • Procter & Gamble.
  • Samsung Electronics.
  • Swatch Group (Omega, Tissot).
  • Toyota
  • Visa

GLM’s research has identified the top ambush marketers for each of the Tokyo 2020 Top Partners; many of these, of course, carry over from one Olympiad to the next.

According to the latest numbers, the mean score for The Top Olympic Partners was 71.43 BAI against  69.94 score for the Non-affiliated Marketers. This means that the Non-affiliated Marketers are reaping nearly the same economic benefit despite their lack of official association with the Olympic Games.

The first chart shows each Top Partner with ‘Non-affiliated Marketers’ (NAMs) or ambushers.  The second chart shows both Partners and Ambushers in a single, combined ranking.

The Global Language Monitor’s Brand Affiliation Index (BAI), is a proprietary, longitudinal study that analyzes the global association between (and among) individual brands and their competitors or, in this case, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. In the study, The Global Language Monitor measured several dozen factors, closely examining all marketing movements extending from London 2012 to Tokyo 2020. GLM has been tracking the Olympic Partners since the Beijing Summer Games (2008).

“We’ve met unlikely ambushers from cartoon characters (Beijing 2008, Kung-fu Panda) to world leaders on the brink of war (PyeongChang 2018, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump) but never a raging pandemic.

 —   Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM.

Though official numbers are never released, each Top Partner is believed to pay some 100 million USD for the privilege. GLM has found that the actual number is closer to 1,000,000,000 USD for each Olympiad, fully loaded. This includes indirect costs associated with the sponsorship such as an apparently endless number of activities, contests, promotional items, and events.

Of course, in 2020 GLM found that the Tokyo 2020 Games had themselves been ambushed by the coronavirus with a remarkable 92.8% correlation to the ongoing Pandemic.

This is up some eight percentage points from a year ago when the Games were first postponed. This means that in GLM’s global research data, out of every 100 references to the 2020 Summer Games, more some 92 now contained a reference to the coronavirus and/or COVID-19.

For comparison purposes, GLM created the Economic Value Unit (EVU) that estimates in dollar terms the size of the value leak for each of the TOP Sponsors during the current quadrennial. In like manner, it estimates the value gained by the NAMs or Ambush Marketers.

The study pulls data from hundreds of millions of data points from across the internet and the top 380,000 print, electronic news media outlets, and social networking sites, analyzing sentiment, context and a host of other factors to determine which Worldwide Olympic Partners are most closely associated with the Olympic Games, and which brands are being closely associated with the coronavirus pandemic or both. The findings are published in the Tokyo 2020 Ambush Marketing Report, which is now available for order. (See below.)

Going a step further, the GLM study also includes an analysis on how closely brands and a number of their ‘ambush’ competitors are being affected by the coronavirus, which has been a global concern in the lead up to the Tokyo Games.

“We actually found a remarkable correlation between the coronavirus and the Worldwide Olympic Partners,” Payack continued. “A number of the Brands (and ambushers), actually had nearly as many citations linked to the coronavirus as to the Games themselves. In a few cases, citations to the coronavirus actually exceeded those to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.”

Early this year, the IOC Executive Board expressed its full commitment to the Tokyo Games, scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8, reporting that all protective measures are being taken to address the coronavirus situation. Lately, they banned all non-athletic visitors from the Games. This situation has steadily deteriorated.

About Global Language Monitor

Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language. The company is known for its Words of the Year,  political analysis, college and university rankings, high-tech buzzwords, and media analytics, and the Top Global Fashion Capitals.

For more information, visit Languagemonitor.com.

Paul JJ Payack

Global Language Monitor

+1 737-215-7750

pjjp@Post.Harvard.edu

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Tokyo 2020: The Global Language Monitor Finds That the Olympic Games Have Been Ambushed by COVID-19

Through its proprietary algorithms, a study conducted by Global Language Monitor determined the Olympic Games themselves have a remarkable 84.5% correlation to the Coronavirus and Covid-19.

Copyright 2020 Global Language Monitor

The Correlation Between Tokyo 2020 and the Coronavirus

As the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo fast approach, the threat of coronavirus is dominating the global conversation. Global Language Monitor (GLM), an Austin-based data research firm that analyzes Global trends across the world, helps companies discover how their brands are being perceived, and how closely they are being associated with current events.

In their exclusive ambush marketing analysis for the seventh consecutive Olympic Games, GLM has found that the Tokyo 2020 Games have themselves been ambushed by the coronavirus and COVID-19, with a remarkable 84.5% correlation to the coronavirus and Covid-19. 

This means that in GLM’s global research data, out of every 100 references to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, more than 80 also contained a reference to the coronavirus and/or COVID-19. The study was concluded on March 16, 2020

“In our studies over the years we have found some remarkable ambushers from an animated cartoon character (Beijing 2008, Kung-fu Panda) to world leaders on the brink of a nuclear crisis (PyeongChang 2018, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump), but never did we imagine a global pandemic as an Olympic Ambusher,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.

Going a step further, the GLM study also includes an analysis on how closely brands and a number of their competitors are being affected by the coronavirus, which is a global concern in the lead up to the Tokyo Games. The information is critical in helping brands position themselves accordingly and adapt to the volatility of the situation as the threat of COVID-19 looms.

“We actually found a remarkable correlation between the coronavirus and the Worldwide Olympic Partners,” Payack continued.  “A number of the Brands (and ambushers), actually had nearly as many citations linked to the coronavirus as to the Games themselves.  In a few cases, citations to the coronavirus actually exceeded those to the Tokyo 2020.”

Affiliation Between Worldwide Olympic Partners and the Coronavirus


Using the BAI™ (Brand Affiliation Index™), and the EAI™ (Entity Affiliation Index™) and other proprietary algorithms, GLM also determined which Tokyo sponsors are linked most closely to the Tokyo 2020 brand, as shown in the chart below,

The Affiliation of the Worldwide Olympic Partners to the Tokyo 2020 Brand by BAI

The study pulls data from an abundance of data points from across the internet and the top 350,000 print, electronic news media outlets, and social networking sites analyzing sentiment, context and a host of other factors to determine which Worldwide Olympic Partners are most closely associated with the Olympic Games, and which brands are being closely associated with Covid-19, the coronavirus or both. The findings are published in the Tokyo 2020 Ambush Marketing Report [link].  The Top Ambush Marketers ninety-days out from the start of the Tokyo Games follow:

The Top Ambush Marketers ninety-days out from the start of the Tokyo Games follow:

The Top Ambushers of the Worldwide Olympic Partners by BAI™

Tokyo 2020 sponsors are segmented by the amount they pay in fees to the (IOC) International Olympic Committee. The various classifications are Worldwide Olympic Partners, Olympic Gold Partners, Olympic Official Partners, Official Olympic Supporters.

Though sponsorship fees are never officially acknowledged, the total, fully loaded, cost of a tier-one Olympic Sponsorship has been estimated to be as much as one billion USD ($1,000,000,000) over the course of a four-year Olympiad.  Partners’ competitors are also put under the microscope to determine the effectiveness of ambush marketing techniques. In Olympics past, opportunistic ambush marketers have leveraged the worldwide popularity of the Olympic Games without any sort of sponsorship, yet still maintained a high degree of association. The analysis helps provide insights that empower brands with leverage to determine whether their investment is worthwhile.  The complete Tokyo Olympics Ambush Marketing Report is available, here.

Early this March, the IOC Executive Board expressed its full commitment to the Tokyo Games, scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9, reporting that all protective measures are being taken to address the coronavirus situation. This situation has steadily deteriorated.