Chapter 621 Top Global Partners

Yang Xing was having a romantic house in Shanghai Xingtiandi Villa, with a conference without any cover, and he was very happy. However, after all, he was a big boss who controlled the livelihoods of more than 100,000 employees. He could not always indulge in it, and still had to do serious business. So after Yang Xing's "Indian God Oil" offensive was gathered by Tan Meichang to defeat his sisters with softness, he had to abandon the humiliation of failure and turned to ask about the official business that Tan Meichang would do in Shanghai this time.

So the two sat by the lake and talked about serious business affairs through Zhang Xiaotiao, but they were still naked. Both of them were veterans of the fun, and they were as thick as a city wall, and they didn't care at all. Except for Tan Meichang's thanks to Yang Xing for helping to convince her daughter, the topic turned to the negotiations with the International Olympic Committee that she participated in before coming to Shanghai in Lausanne, Switzerland, and gave Yang Xing a detailed introduction to the progress of China Star's attempt to join the (top) global partner program designated by the International Olympic Committee.

Although Yang Xing has not been very interested in watching these Olympic Games, after all, he has never been interested in watching the results before watching the process. However, he has not missed the opportunity for the 2008 Beijing Olympics held at his doorstep. It is said that the century-old Olympic Games has made the world's largest event and attracted countless attentions from the world. It seems to be a supreme glory for the host city.

But who knows that before the 1980s, hosting the Olympics was just a superficial glory for any country, but in fact it was not worth the money, and it was a big compensation? The 21st Montreal Olympics in 1976 lost nearly US$1 billion and took decades to fill in the fiscal deficit. This made many countries frightened and gave up bidding for it because they were afraid of carrying heavy financial burdens. This made the International Olympic Committee, which had always wanted to promote the Olympics to the world, very distressed.

The turning point occurred at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. When the uncompromising Olympics fell into this unfamous West Coast city in the United States, people were not optimistic about its prospects. Who would have thought that Americans fully utilized their business talents, operated in accordance with the operating rules of the modern sports market, and used their marketing expertise to create amazing miracles, allowing the US Olympic Organizing Committee, who did not even have a bank account, to make nearly 250 million US dollars, bringing infinite vitality to the development of Olympic sports.

The Los Angeles Olympics not only did not rely on the financial allocation of cities, but also made high profits, which made the International Olympic Committee wake up from a dream. It turned out that hosting the Olympics does not necessarily mean losing money, but it was a business that made a lot of money! So in 1985, the International Olympic Committee fully launched the Olympic commercial sponsorship program, making a fortune in each Olympic Games, and also allowed cities around the world to compete for the right to host the Olympic Games, and promoted themselves at all costs.

The International Olympic Committee Olympic sponsor program is divided into three structures. The first level is the global partner top (the  olympic  partner), the second level is the partners of the Olympic cities hosted by the current Olympics, and the third level is the sponsors and suppliers of the current Olympic cities hosted by the current Olympics. The list of first-level partners is limited, and the selected large companies are generally ranked high in a certain industry. For example, among the global partners of first-level Olympics, Visaka and Coca-Cola have been top partners of the Olympic Committee since the beginning.

It is not cheap to become a top partner. When signing the contract in 1985, the sponsorship entrance fee was only a few million US dollars, but the current year was rising. Now, even if you pay $50 million in funds and services, the Olympic Committee has to be picky and choose before you have the hope of getting started. Moreover, the high sponsorship fee is only obtained by getting tickets to the Olympic market. If you want to truly use this to enhance your brand image, you still need at least three to five times the sponsorship amount for public relations promotion and marketing activities. In other words, it is not a one-time solution after becoming a top partner, and you also need to deal with fierce competition.

Of course, the benefits of becoming a top partner are also obvious. The list of partners is very exclusive. According to the agreement, products from non-Olympic partners cannot appear in the Olympic stadium, and they cannot use the Olympic Five Ring logo and Olympic name impersonation, otherwise they will have to sue. There are only a dozen global partners at the Olympic top each time. During the Olympics, the most common ones that global audiences see through TV lenses are these ten brands, and the advertising effect is very obvious.

The top partner agreement is a sign of large companies' reputation and strength, and has created many successful business examples through the huge global influence of the Olympics. The Olympic credit card partner Visa Card is a good example. During the Olympics, Visa Credit Card's old rival, Mastercard, cannot appear in any Olympic advertising campaign, and even if athletes pay for money to buy things, they must be cut off the picture.

In Asia, Mastercard has always beat Visaca to occupy the largest share, but Visa used the top global partner program to perfectly integrate its advertising, public relations, internal communication and product development. In 1987, Visa launched a large-scale attack in the Asian region the year before the Seoul Olympics. In the name of the Olympics, Visa rose from third to first place in the Asian market in just three years.

Coca-Cola has sponsored the Olympics since 1928 and has always been a regular Olympic guest. It has also fought with its old rival Pepsi for market share. The most exciting marketing campaign of Coca-Cola in the Olympics took place at the Atlanta Olympics. As the top sponsor of that Olympics, the American local giant made a profit of US$967 million in the third quarter of that year, an increase of 21 year-on-year, while Pepsi's profit fell by 77 during the same period, so that a French media couldn't help but use the title "Coca-Cola laughs, Pepsi Crystals" when reporting on this matter.

The most famous example is the Samsung Group in South Korea. The 1988 Seoul Olympics represented South Korea's successful entry into a developed country. As one of the few companies with vision in South Korea, Samsung, although it was only a small company that produced black and white TVs for Sanyo, replaced the famous Motorola company in 1997. It took only a dozen hours to complete negotiations with the Olympic Committee and officially became an international partner of the Olympic Games in terms of wireless communication equipment. Its courage to take everything is amazing.

With Samsung signing a top agreement with the International Olympic Committee, through continuous sponsorship of various Olympic activities and vigorously promoting sports marketing, Samsung has become an international large enterprise from an unknown Korean company. In the world brand value ranking, Samsung has now become the second largest brand in Asia and the 25th largest brand in the world with a brand value of US$10.8 billion.

After the Sydney Olympics, Samsung's communications product sales increased by 44. Not long ago, after the Nagano Winter Olympics, the latest survey showed that Samsung's global brand awareness rose from 5 before Olympic sponsorship to 16.2, which is a typical case of taking advantage of the Olympics to create golden eggs. Even if Zhongxing Group emerged and still relied on Samsung's disadvantage in terms of Asian famous brands, Samsung's success naturally inspired other Asian companies to join the Olympic top agreement.

Since Yang Xing himself had known about China's bid for the 2008 Olympics, he had no hesitation and ordered his subordinates to prepare for the top Olympics agreement before bidding. When the news of Beijing's bid for the successful bid for the Olympics came, the headquarters immediately started to move. However, it was also very difficult to join the top Olympics Global Partner Program, because the members were a carrot and a pit, and there was only one position in each industry. If the people in front did not retreat, the people behind would not have a chance. Just like Panasonic has always dominated the home appliance industry, and another more famous Japanese manufacturer, Sony, has never been able to squeeze in.

But now there is a great opportunity. Not long ago, news came out that the Olympic Games IT sponsor ibm is preparing to withdraw from the plan. Yang Xing instructed his subordinates to seize this opportunity and take it. He also had the idea of ​​killing two birds with one stone, not only to replace ibm's Olympic top sponsor, but also wanted to cut a piece of meat from ibm.

Tan Meichang is a member of the negotiation team with the Olympic Committee. The news she brought about has already come to know the top sponsorship with the Olympic Committee. It is not a big problem to become a sponsor of the Athens Olympics and the Turin Winter Olympics. Because ibm's service issues frequently occurred at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics that ended not long ago, it caused the International Olympic Committee and ibm to swear lawsuits. ibm has expressed his intention to give up top global partners. It is time for Yang Xing to take action.

The women around Yang Xing heard about ibm's name and were also interested in the topics of Yang Xing and Tan Meichang. They couldn't help but ask, since there are many benefits for participating in the Olympic Committee's global partners, why do anyone have to give up? Yang Xing replied that this is the professional business idea of ​​Western companies.

With the development of social and economic development and the advancement of science and technology, the traditional Western economic cornerstone manufacturing industry has undergone great changes. The value chain is constantly subdivided out, forming a new industrial form. With the rise of emerging countries, market competition is becoming more and more fierce, and the profit margins of most industries are declining, while customers' requirements are getting higher and higher. When the means of reducing costs, improving production efficiency, small profits but quick turnover, brand building and other means are exhausted, we have to consider finding another way out.

After World War II, as the high value-added links of manufacturing continued to shift to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, R&D and services have become an industry with a vast space. In 1992, Acer Computer founder Shirley proposed the "industry smile curve" theory, pointing out that on the smile curve, manufacturing is in the middle, R&D on the left (which belongs to global competition); marketing on the right (which mainly involves regional competition).

When manufacturing enters the era of globalization, sooner or later, an oversupply situation will form, and the profits generated will become lower and lower. However, the added value of R&D, marketing and services is high, so the industry will develop towards both ends of the smile curve in the future, that is, while strengthening R&D and creating intellectual property rights, strengthening customer-oriented marketing and services.

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