Daily Buzz

By Gavin O’Malley

From the Super Bowl to the Winter Olympics, watching sports online has become a key component of fans’ viewing experiences, according to a new sports and technology study from the Consumer Electronics Association.
This year, nearly one in five — 18% — of consumers planning to follow live events at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver plan to do so online.
Twenty-five percent are planning on watching clips or highlights online, while 30% of consumers plan to follow the Games in a printed source, such as a newspaper or magazine. As a direct result, major Olympics sponsors are investing in online advertising like never before.

By Wayne Friedman

NBC’s media research for the Vancouver Olympics has reaped big rewards across traditional viewership, multiplatform usage and improved metrics for NBC’s marketing clients, says its chief research executive.
Looking at advertisers so far, NBC compared 142 Olympic marketers’ commercials — their Olympic advertising versus their regular TV media plans — and said there was, on average, 24% higher brand recall, 31% more message recall, and 21% better likability for TV viewers.
For advertisers using Olympic-themed advertising, the numbers were higher than for those Olympic advertisers that didn’t. Olympic-themed advertising had 18% higher brand recall, 65% improvement in message recall, and 88% more in likability.
Through Feb. 20 major Olympic and NBC sponsor Coca-Cola (according to Nielsen’s IAG) saw a 77% brand increase in brand recall; 84% in media recall; and 86% in brand likability.

By Karl Greenberg

BMW has just launched what the Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based company says is its biggest brand campaign to date, and maybe the first that puts as much focus on the drivers and their pleasure in driving as the cars themselves. It’s part of a big-media strategy the company is doing to raise its profile worldwide with a more emotional, optimistic voice. Jack Pitney, VP of marketing for BMW, takes Marketing Daily for a drive.
Q: Post Olympics, what is BMW’s media strategy?
A: We are really taking the philosophy of “do it right or don’t do it at all.” That means making sure the programming we buy is indeed TiVo-proof. We are going to try to focus in on real marquee live events that people just do not want to miss. So the Olympics are a great jumping-off point for us. You will see us have a strong presence with the Academy Awards; we’ll roll into March Madness with a strong presence there — and, as the year unfolds, we will continue to focus on high-profile TV opportunities.

The Nashville Predators and Bridgestone Americas today announced a naming-rights deal for the team’s arena in downtown Nashville, giving the venue its fourth name in 14 years.

By Eric Fisher

Major League Gaming and Doritos tonight will begin the Doritos Pro-Gaming Combine that is the core of the snack brand’s multi-year sponsorship of the competitive video gaming league first announced last summer.
The pair of companies will launch the Web site doritoscombine.com, with the first-ever effort to identify new gaming talent leading up to four on-site combine events to be held between March and October in Nashville, Chicago, Denver and DC.
As part of the MLG combine marketing program, Doritos will showcase the campaign on more than 30 million of its $0.99 bags of Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese chips during May and June.
MLG Chief Brand Officer Sundance DiGiovanni said, “We see this as a rare and unique opportunity for us, something that will be absolutely huge for our community and the MLG brand. Best yet, we think we’re coming about this in a really authentic way.”