Who really won in Vancouver: Ambushers

Four of the five top brands at the Winter Games

Red Bull Top Ambush Marketer at Vancouver Olympics

Proctor & Gamble, the No. 1 Olympic Sponsor of Any Type

Ambushers Pepsi and Verizon Best Sponsors Coca-Cola and AT&T

Subway Still Strong

“Gang of Five” Canadians beat all IOC sponsors except Visa

Austin, TX March 24, 2010 – The final TrendTopper Ambush Index™ of the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010 by Austin-based Global Language Monitor, has shown, once again, how companies adept at associating themselves with an event, even though they are not ‘official’ sponsors of that event, can often outperform official sponsors.

Specifically, for the Vancouver Olympics, TrendTopper AI has found that:

• Red Bull and the Martin Scorsese film ‘Shutter Island’ are the top Ambush Marketers.  ‘Shutter Island’ forged its Olympic linkage by running innumerable prime-time ads during NBC’s exclusive coverage of the event.

• Ambusher Pepsi beat sponsor Coca-Cola; Ambusher Verizon beat sponsor AT&T

• Subway, with it ongoing campaign with mega-medal winner Michael Phelps maintained strong ties to the Games

• The ‘Gang of Five,’ the smaller Canadian Ambushers (Blenz Coffee, Howe Sound Brewing, Lululemon, Scotiabank, and Roots Canada) all beat all IOC sponsors with the exception of Visa (which was bested by four of the five).

• Proctor & Gamble performed surprisingly well as No. 2 overall and the No. 1 Sponsor of any type.

In addition, the analysis found that past official sponsors appear to bask in the glow of their Olympic association for some time after the quadrennial event with past-sponsor Lenovo outpacing current sponsors Acer and Samsung.

“Do Olympic Sponsorships actually pay off for official sponsors?  That’s the question that has advertisers buzzing,” said Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst of GLM.  “Since TrendTopper AI measures all perceived Olympic sponsors according to their presence in the global media, If they are statistically linked to the Vancouver Games, they qualify for the Ambush Index.”

The TrendTopper Ambush Index tracks brand media presence in relation to the Winter Games.  It’s based upon GLM’s Predictive Quantities Index, a proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in print and electronic media, on the Internet and throughout the blogosphere, now including social media. The words and phrases are tracked in relation to their frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

For the 2009 – 2012 Olympic Quadrennial, there are nine Global Partners:  Coca-Cola, Acer, GE, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung, Visa, and AT&T.  The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has two additional national partners:  P&G and the Budweiser unit of inBev.  The Canadian Olympic committee has a number of local partners, of which five were included:  Deloitte, Tyson Foods, United Airlines, Hilton and Nike.

For this analysis, the Ambush Marketers included:  Verizon, Subway, Pepsi, MasterCard and Adidas in the Global Category.  The National Category included Lululemon Athletica, Blenz Coffee, Roots Canada, Scotiabank and Howe Sound Brewing.  Past sponsors who continue to enjoy the glow of past Olympic associations, such as: Allstate, Bank of America, Home Depot, and Lenovo were also included in the analysis.

The Top Twenty-five marketers as measured by brand media presence in relation to the Winter Games.

`	VO Partner	Affiliation
Rank
1	Howe Sound Brewing	Ambusher
2	P&G	USOC
3	Shutter Island	Ambusher
4	Scotiabank	Ambusher
5	Lululemon Athletica	Ambusher
6	United	COC
7	Blenz Coffee	Ambusher
8	Visa	IOC
9	Red Bull	Ambusher
10	Tyson	COC
11	Roots Canada	Ambusher
12	Budweiser	USOC
13	McDonalds	IOC
14	Pepsi	Ambusher
15	Home Depot Inc	Tornino USOC
16	Subway	Ambusher
17	Verizon	Ambusher
18	Hudson’s Bay	Ambushed
19	Exxon Mobil Corp	Past Sponsor
20	Deloitte	COC
21	AT&T	IOC
22	Bank of America	Torino USOC
23	Nike	COC
24	Hilton	COC
25	Omega	IOC

The complete study of forty brands, with numerical analysis and changes in rankings over the course of the Games is available from the Global Language Monitor by calling 925.367.7557 or visiting www.LanguageMonitor.com.

In the TrendTopper AI analysis, Marketers are ranked both by category and then overall. Rankings are calculated, normalized and cross-indexed.  For trend analysis, momentum and velocity calculations, the TrendTopper AI analysis was run at the halfway point of the Winters Games, with the final tally appearing after the Closing Ceremony.

For more information, call 1.512.801.6823.