Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: July 2004

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Bronze Service is published regularly, but the most recent items here were provided to our subscribers by e-mail month ago or more. For more timely news that comes right to you, simply upgrade to our Gold or Silver service at Morgan:News:2010. Bronze is free for the use of news services and for non-commerical public use under conditions described at: Morgan:News:2010:Bronze . The archive dates refer to when a story was posted here, not the date of the story. To estimate when a story was first published, subtract one month from the archive date.

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #381
FURLONG TO CARRY ATHENS TORCH; COLLECTOR TO ATTEND FIRST GAMES IN 2010

Some moguls we've bumped into today...

The CEO of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, John Furlong, will be one of the official torch bearers as the Olympic Torch for the 2004 Athens Olympics moves through Montreal on June 20. The torch route doesn't include Vancouver this year, in part to ensure that the marketing message about the 2006 Winter Olympics being held in Italy isn't compromised. Furlong joins Charmaine Crooks and the Canadian Olympic Committee president, Michael Chambers, who are both VANOC directors, on the torch relay.

The Olympic Relay Committee is made up of representatives from the City of Montreal, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Cite des arts du cirque, the Consulate-General of Greece, Coca-Cola and Samsung (the two official sponsors of the "Universal Olympic Torch Relay"), and the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee.
Here's the full list of Montreal runners, and a route map:
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/asurveiller/flamme_en.shtm
John Campbell, of Port Orchard, Washington State, just south of Vancouver Island, isn't an official torch bearer, but he owns one of the torches made for the 2004 Athens Summer Games. He has memorabilia from every Olympic Games going back to 1896, and the torch is the 17th that he owns. Campbell, who has been collecting items, including medals and participation certificates, since high school in the 1960s has been to Olympic museums around the world but has never attended an Olympic event. But that, he says, will change when he comes to the 2010 games in Vancouver.
One of the major themes from various organizations around British Columbia in the time leading up to the 2010 Winter Games is to entice major events to the province, in part as a rehearsal for 2010. For example, Whistler Blackcomb will be the first North American resort to hold a FIS Snowboard World Championships in January 2005. Athletes from more than 40 countries will travel to Whistler to compete in the halfpipe, big air, snowboard cross, parallel giant slalom, and parallel slalom events. However, a number of these events are already locking themselves down in other parts of the world. Here are several major winter-sports contests that Whistler, for instance, won't be hosting:
The International Ski Federation says the French ski resort of Val d'Isere will host the 2009 Alpine World Championships.
The 2009 World Snowboard Championships will be held in South Korea's Gangwon Province, which narrowly lost the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Other world championships already committed elsewhere:
2005
Alpine skiing - Bormio, Italy, Jan 29 to Feb 11
Freestyle skiing - Ruka, Finland, March 17-20
2007
Freestyle skiing- Madonna di Campiglio, Italy
Snowboard - Arosa, Switzerland
Alpine skiing- Are, Sweden
Nordic skiing- Sapporo, Japan
2009
Alpine skiing- Val d'Isere, France
Nordic skiing- Liberec, Czech Republic
Freestyle skiing- Inawashiro, Japan

South Korea's eastern Gangwon province may have lost the 2010 bid for the Winter Olympics, but it's going ahead anyway with ambitious plans to build or expand winter sports venues to meet requirements for an Olympic Winter Games. The province will build a new ski jump center and expand the existing cross-country and biathlon venue in Peace Valley in PyeongChang by 2006. It ski jump center will house a tower, which will also be used as a lookout, and K125 and 98 competition jumps as well as three practice jumps. The cross-country course will be lengthened to 15 kilometers from the existing 7.5 kilometers and the biathlon course to 8 kilometers from the current 3.75 kilometers.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 14, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #380
NEW WESTMINSTER TO HOLD PUBLIC FORUM IN FALL ON DRAFT 2010 STRATEGY

New Westminster City Council's 2010 Olympic Committee at a meeting today is expected to approve a draft strategy to "revitalize" the city and entice visitors to come to it during the 2010 Winter Games. And it's also expected to set up a public forum in September for comments on the strategy.

The detailed strategy, prepared by city administrator Paul Daminato after several meetings with the mayor and the six councillors who comprise the committee during the past few months, is expected to run under the theme of "New Westminster: Together in 2010" and runs for several pages. Also involved in the strategy's development was the city's Spirit of 2010 Committee of business and community leaders.

The strategy comes under four headings:

1. "Remind ourselves that we are the original 'City of Champions' and championships":

The section urges the City "revitalize and renew our aging [sports] facilities so they are in first-class shape as training venues during the Olympics and for future generations of our athletes." It also wants to entice the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame to locate in New Westminster, become a "permanent home for B.C. Olympians," host as many "significant" sports events as possible between adoption of the strategy and 2010, including wheelchair curling, which is to be adopted during the 2010 Winter Paralympics, start a search for "future Olympians" and support City athletes who have a chance to compete in the 2010 Winter Games.

2. "Promote a 2010-For-All approach":

This section is aimed at encouraging New Westminster citizens to be involved in sports and fitness activities and to develop a "populist 2010 Olympic Training Program" through "schools, community clubs and city-wide challenges" such as "waterfront walks." The section also deals with encouraging development of city-based Paralympic teams and using the Paralympics as a rationale for improving access for the disabled in New Westminster. It also suggests creating an annual "Together for 2010" winter festival, beginning as early as 2005, to offer family-based winter sports activities with Olympic themes that may need to involve "trucked-in snow." The 2010 version of the festival, it suggests, "would be a giant countdown celebration every weekend during the Olympics, where the entire community can celebrate, meet athletes, cheer on their favourites "on big-screen TVs". The strategy also suggests and offering New Westminster facilities to an "adopted country" -- Great Britain, which is expected to send about 50 athletes and coaches for every event except hockey, was suggested during discussion of the strategy -- before and during the Olympics for training.

3. "Revitalize the City for a 2010 Showcase Opportunity":

This portion of the strategy voices long-discussed concepts for using existing and proposed residential and commercial developments to improve the look and foot-traffic flow in and around the downtown core and waterfront, and is set in the context of several large developments proposed for the City. It suggests the city council also be involved in helping this along, but it may only influence the development permit process rather than see the City put actual funds toward such schemes.

4. "Prepare to host the world Olympics style":

This section is aimed at encouraging New Westminster residents to "open their homes... during the Olympics and pre-Olympic events" to visitors, and to encourage development of centralized marketing programs and booking arrangements, coupled with "short-term bylaws" to facilitate things so that putting up families won't violate city residential-use laws. The strategy would also encourage city residents to entice friends, relatives and previous residents -- particularly those from other countries -- to come or return to New Westminster while the Olympics are on. This section also includes the 'adopt-a-country' approach by suggesting that New Westminster set up the ability to billet teams and their supporters in the Royal City during training and, perhaps, during the Games, although the official athletes villages would be open during that time. Also suggested: "a tug parade" along the Fraser River "to put our city on the world map."

Daminato says the next step in the process would be to develop a plan to marshal the resources necessary for implementing it once the public has had a chance to discuss it, and then "develop an action plan."

BACKGROUND =

Here are the people at New Westminster City Hall involved in the 2010 Olympic Committee:

ELECTED:
Mayor Wayne Wright, Chair
Councillor Casey Cook
Councillor Jerry Dobrovolny
Councillor Calvin Donnelly
Councillor Bob Osterman
Councillor Chuck Puchmayr
Councillor Lorrie Williams

STAFF:
Paul Daminato - City Administrator
Tanalee Hesse - Acting City Clerk
Pat Connolly - Director of Engineering
Gary Holowatiuk - Director of Finance
Carl Nepstad - Director of Fire and Rescue
Dean Gibson - Director of Parks and Recreation
Leslie Gilbert - Acting Director of Planning
Michael McAllister - Solicitor
Lisa Spitale - Director of Strategic Services

City of New Westminster
511 Royal Avenue
New Westminster, B.C. V3L 1H9
Telephone: 604.521.3711
Fax: 604.521.3895

RESOURCES

The detailed New Westminster draft 2010 strategy plan in PDF format:
http://www.morgan-news.com/2010/SupportFiles/2004-06/NewWestDraftStrategy.pdf

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 14, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Business| #379
(FEATURE) AUDIT, TAX ADVICE FIRMS SOUGHT AS FIRST FISCAL YEAR WINDS UP

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee is offering two of the most prestigious assignments for accountants in the world, and it's not limiting the search to Canadians or Canadian firms.

VANOC's vice-president of Finance, John McLaughlin, is looking for proposals from accounting firms to audit the organization for at least the next two years starting with the organization's fiscal year that ends this coming July 31.

And in a separate search, it's looking for an accounting firm to provide it with a wide range of local, national and international tax advice for the next three years, starting in August.

Why just the first two or three years? Because, depending on which firms respond and what they suggest, VANOC's financial flows and tax complexities during that time will be relatively light. But by 2006 or 2007, spending will ramp up exponentially as venue construction gets underway, and eventually money starts flowing back to the organization. It may well need much larger accounting firms to do the work in the last four or five years of its mandate.

Although the firms need not be Canadian, the audit has to be conducted to generally accepted Canadian auditing standards, and there are a wide range of sometimes-intricate work dealing with the tax treatments of a wide range of Canadian governmental and other institutions, as well as supplier tax flows. Not only that, but the audited financial statements will be one of the most scrutinized documents published by VANOC, given the highly charged political environment in which it operates.
VANOC's board of directors has two separate Audit and Finance committees. The Audit Committee is made up of five members and meets about half a dozen times a year. It's responsible for reviewing the annual statements from the auditor and approving them before they go to the full Board for approval. The Finance committee has eight members, including two chairs, and meets monthly to monitor the operational finances of the organization.

CEO John Furlong has prepared an organizational outline in the past few months, and it looks like there will be more than 50 functional sections to VANOC, some of which are operational now, and others will be fleshed out as it grows. [For a list of which director is a member of which committee, and some of the main function areas, see our BACKGROUND section, below].

In addition to its operations -- in its Bid book it projected cash flows of more than C$1.5 billion, in 2002 dollars, from start to finish -- VANOC will also be managing a venue development and legacy program worth more than C$600 million.

Any auditor or tax adviser interested in the work needs to be ready to move quickly. Companies interested in offering their services have to get their proposals and resumes in to VANOC's Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Dorothy Byrne, by the end of June. The firm selected to do the audit, to be chosen by August 6, or the tax planning, to be chosen by August 12, won't be resting on its laurels or taking summer holidays. VANOC wants the year-end audit work completed by September 15, finalized a week later, sent to the audit committee by the end of September, so it can meet with the committee on October 7.

As for the tax-advisory services, there are going to be quite a few complexities to the job, mostly to aggressively ensure VANOC doesn't end up paying tax.

By international tradition, any organization officially connected to putting on the 2010 Winter Games -- and that includes accredited media, sponsors and suppliers -- will be except from customs duties, excises taxes and GST on goods imported into Canada, such as personal effects, gifts, awards, display goods and equipment. The International Olympic Committee is also exempt from Canadian federal income tax, and Canada's 7% Goods and Services Tax (GST) paid by the IOC in its commercial activities is fully recoverable through input tax credits. VANOC, legally a non-profit organization, isn't subject to federal income tax, nor federal or provincial capital taxes. Not only that, but it can get a full recovery of all GST it pays on real property construction costs under most conditions, and even in the cases where it incurs the tax, it gets a 50% rebate because of its non-profit status.

Interestingly, though, VANOC is subject to British Columbia's 7.5% social services tax, also known as the PST. It also has to withhold taxes on payments to people outside of Canada in certain cases, depending on how tax treaties work for various countries. These payments typically would include interest, rents, royalties and some management and administrative fees.

Funds that VANOC received from third-party organizations inside Canada aren't subject to income tax, either, although if they are taxable goods and services, VANOC pays GST or PST.

Both the federal and provincial governments have assured VANOC and the IOC that no withholding or income taxes will apply on shared revenues or surplus that flows from VANOC to the IOC. Shared revenues received by VANOC from the IOC are not subject to taxation, either.

While it may be prestigious work, the successful firm may find it difficult to tell anybody that it's got the assignment. The firm will not be allowed to promote itself as working with Vancouver 2010 or connect itself to the Olympics in any way unless it's got an agreement to that effect from VANOC, nor can it use the idea that it's a supplier to VANOC in any of its advertising or marketing. It's not even allowed to mention the concept to the news media. And that's for the length of the assignment, not just during the selection process. In fact, the only person they can talk to at VANOC until they are selected is Byrne, after that, they'll have full access to VANOC financial staff and executives.

There's another group of people the firm can't talk to either. VANOC doesn't want any lobbying going on in an attempt to politically influence the audit selection process. That means the firm can't bend the ear of anybody at the City of Vancouver, Whistler, the federal government, the B.C. provincial government, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee or the International Olympic Committee.

As expected, neither the firm selected for doing the auditing or the tax advice can be doing any other work for VANOC, in compliance with rulings the past few years where some auditing firms found themselves in tough positions because they were also providing management consulting services to their client, but the restriction also includes any other type of financial services. Thus the firm selected for doing either the audit or tax work can't also be involved in providing the other type of services.

BACKGROUND =

Some of the 50 main functional areas of VANOC:

Legal
Ticketing
The 'Look of the Games' department
Creative services;
Marketing & sales;
Procurement & logistics;
Technology;
Transportation
Venues
Sport
Games services
Games management
Games workforce
Host broadcasting and media services
Environment & sustainability
Finance
Culture & ceremonies
Communications
Accommodations

How busy is VANOC now, financially?

Staff (Full-time equivalents): 40
Cheques issued per month: 175
Invoices paid per month: 250

VANOC currently uses the software program, Simply Accounting, but says it will switch to "a more robust system" within the next year.

==

Here's a list of VANOC'S Board of Directors (and who they represent), and whether they sit on the Audit or Finance Committees:

Jack Poole, Chairman, Vancouver 2010 Board

Peter Dhillon, Government of Canada - Audit Committee - Chair
Marion Lay. City of Vancouver - Audit Committee
Michael Phelps. Canadian Olympic Committee - Audit Committee
Richard Pound. Canadian Olympic Committee - Audit Committee
Richard Turner. Province of British Columbia - Audit Committee

The Province has also appointed Annette Antoniak, who is the deputy minister of the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development, which oversees VANOC, as co-chair of the Finance Committee with Dobell.

Ken Dobell, Province of British Columbia - Finance Committee - Co-Chair
Jim Godfrey. Resort Municipality of Whistler - Finance Committee
Gibby Jacob. Squamish and Lil’wat First Nations - Finance Committee
Patrick Jarvis. Canadian Paralympic Committee - Finance Committee
Judy Rogers. City of Vancouver - Finance Committee
Chris Rudge. Canadian Olympic Committee - Finance Committee
Tony Tennessy. Government of Canada - Finance Committee

Other Directors:
Michael Chambers, Canadian Olympic Committee
France Chrétien-Desmarais, Government of Canada
Charmaine Crooks, Canadian Olympic Committee
Barrett Fisher. Resort Municipality of Whistler
Rusty Goepel. Province of British Columbia
Paul Henderson. Canadian Olympic Committee
Catriona Le May Doan. Canadian Olympic Committee

VANOC Senior Management at the moment (hiring of executive vice-presidents in five areas is underway now, with some expected to be hired before the end of June):

John Furlong, Chief Executive Officer
John McLaughlin, Vice President, Finance
Terry Wright, Vice President of Development and Operations
Dorothy Byrne, Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 11, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #378
DESIGN CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE CONFIRMED; BAXTER TO LEGACIESNOW; E-BAY BID CORP ITEMS

Some moguls we've bumped into today...

The official attendance for the 2010 Winter Olympic Logo Design contest conference for designers - which wrapped up yesterday with presentations by the designers who produced the logos for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and 2004's Summer Games in Athens - was 398.
Lori Baxter, the executive director of the Alliance for Arts and Culture in Vancouver, will start a two-year contract with 2010 LegaciesNow at the beginning of September. She's been with the AAC for about 10 years. One of the functions of 2010 LegaciesNow, a quasi-independent organization with a C$15 million budget that works with the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, and deals with the cultural literacy, volunteerism and legacy aspects of the 2010 Games. Baxter's job will be to help develop Arts Now, the arts and cultural portion of 2010 LegaciesNow. She'll begin by meeting with community groups and then decide on the programs to develop.
E-Bay, the Internet auction company, has a number of Vancouver 2010 items related to the bid still available -- pins and postage stamps, primarily. For instance:

Six Vancouver Olympic Bid Corporation gold lapel pins, for US$10 each, plus shipping and handling:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4396&item=4126068602 , but you can get one, amid a batch of other pins for US$3 if you bid before the auction ends June 14:
http://search-desc.ebay.com/vancouver-2010-olympic_W0QQfromZR7QQsotextsearchedZ2

One large, Roots Vancouver BC 2010 Olympic Bid T-Shirt:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15687&item=3915737611&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
Another auction also ending June 14, is for 10 packs of 30 stamps each commemorating the 2010 Olympics, for C$11.99. According to the seller, "When these stamp packs came out, I purchased as many as I could from every Post Office that still had them within Western Canada. I am keeping the lion's share for 2010, but am selling a few now and again." Another site, ending June 17, is offering them for C$20:
<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=47229&item=5501190515&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 11, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #377
U.S. NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF TOURISM AND 2010 OLYMPICS STARTING TO SHOW LINKS

Mentions of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics has begun showing up in off-hand comments in tourism stories in a number of cities that will be important to the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee in the next few years, indicating that newspaper writers and editors are starting to take local knowledge about the Vancouver/Whistler games for granted among their readers.

The comments have been casual, almost taking it for granted the reader already knows, and that the mention is a reminder.

For instance, in today's issue of the New York Times, reporter Bonnie Tsui offers a tourism article about Victoria, British Columbia, "For now," she writes, "this gem of a city remains relatively uncrowded, but when the Winter Games come to the nearby mainland city of Vancouver in 2010, the secret will be out."

In the Portland Oregonian newspaper's coverage of Whistler resorts, reporter Jim Lynch writes,"Whistler, which will host the alpine events for the 2010 Winter Olympics, is so wildly hip now that presenters at the Feb. 29 Academy Awards received certificates in their gift baskets for a free day on the slopes." Later in the article, he adds, "Whistler is accustomed to absorbing 2 million visitors annually, but this little mountain town is now bracing for the avalanche of humanity and scrutiny the 2010 Olympics will trigger. Its current leaders are ambitious like its founders, but they aspire for something beyond simply hosting the games. They hope Whistler will use the Olympics to demonstrate not only how to put on the best skiing and jumping competitions, but how to prevent such a massive event from harming a fragile alpine environment."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 11, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #375
MORE ON BECKIE SCOTT; 2010 AND SUSTAINABILITY; DESIGN CONFERENCE IN BIG LEAGUES

Some moguls we've bumped into today...

A few more details about the Olympic gold-medal ceremony for Beckie Scott on June 25 in Vancouver. Besides presenter Charmaine Crooks of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, also on-hand for the ceremony at 1130 hours Pacific will be Michael Chambers, President of the Canadian Olympic Committee; Leopold Nadeau, the President of Cross Country Canada; and Dave Wood, Head Coach of the Canadian Cross-Country Ski Team. The ceremony will be held in room 403 in the Vancouver Art Gallery. Those involved will make themselves available to reporters about 1230 hours.
-- 2003 Interview with Beckie Scott:
http://www.fasterskier.com/feature.php?id=474
VANOC CEO John Furlong says Vancouver "will break new ground in sustainability" during the development of the 2010 Winter Games. He said that he looked to the Olympics in Lillehammer and Sydney as setting the benchmarks. He also says that it's important to the health of the 2010 Games that, by the time they open, "people believe there is an honorable and trusted organization behind the Games." Furlong also says he is unfazed that some have expressed doubts about Vancouver's ability to pull off a successful Winter Games. "Some say [our vision and plans] are ambitious dreams. Some say they may be impossible to do. Well, they would hardly be worth the effort if they weren't impossible, would they?"
-- Overview of sustainability and the Olympics:
http://olympicstudies.uab.es/eng/yellow/dir/eno.html
http://www.committedtogreen.com/sport/olympic.html
VANOC Communications director Sam Corea says now there "might be a news conference" to mark the July 2nd anniversary of Vancouver and Whistler winning the 2010 Winter Games bid a year ago. "And maybe something at Whistler" at VANOC's office there. He was not specific, but indicated these events were the only ones VANOC was planning and that they would be low-key.
The VANOC logo-design conference in one of the ballrooms of the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre today is the first time the organization has provided the environment of a major Olympic organizing operation. The speakers' backdrop was a huge "2010", each number in a different pastel colour: blue, yellow, green and red. On each side were three flags: Canada, BC and the Olympics. Flanking this were two huge overhead TV screens, fed by two TV cameras and operated by a phalanx of sound and video engineers who incorporated videos and slides. Around the edges of the room were 18 mounted posters from Olympic Games over the decades, all the way back to the German games in the 1930s. The conference, which included a full lunch at the neighbouring Fairmont hotel, was MC'd by TV news broadcaster Jill Krop.
9/11 is a bitter-sweet anniversary for VANOC CEO John Furlong. The day of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, was also the day that Furlong learned he was officially involved in the Games bid.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 10, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #374
(FEATURE) HOW VISA MARKETS OLYMPIC BRANDING

Visa International's chief marketer says that companies involved with Olympic sponsorship marketing, such as the credit card operation, must keep strict control over the use of Olympic-related logos and other branding marks.

Visa is one of the top-level sponsors of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Jennifer Rowland, the senior director of global sponsorships for the organization, develops the marketing tools used by Visa and its 21,000 member financial institutions around the world. She also consults with executives from Visa's six major regions on marketing initiatives and promotions. She also manages the creative agencies that develop the tools, manages the Visa Olympians Reunion Center program and represents Visa when it deals with the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Games Organizing Committee. She's focusing now on the Athens Olympics, which is the fifth Games she's worked on.

Speaking in Vancouver today, Rowland says that besides a wide range of success in Olympic marketing -- "Being involved in the Olympics is more than a business decision for us" -- there are also challenges, "We face some hurdles," she says, many of which are common to all sponsors.

Rowland says that because of the way Visa operates, it communicates its marketing with its regions. They, in turn, deal with regional marketing plans through 21 million merchants in those regions. "As you might expect," she says, "we have a stringent process in place to maintain the integrity of Olympic branding." There are, she says, 56 countries this year using the Athens applications developed by Visa. "And to make it even more interesting," she says, "many of our member financial institutions are competitors, so we have to allow them to develop applications that stand out from each other" while incorporating Olympic marks.

Visa's marketers will have access to the logos of Vancouver's 2010 Games, once they are developed, and they will be used by Visa throughout the world, along with Canadian Olympic brand marks, along with the national emblems of every other country that has a national Olympic Committee. "We counted them up once; we have access to about 1,000 logos." Most of them will be used in conjunction with various Visa and merchant marketing programs in all manner of media, such as broadcast, print, interactive and point-of-sale.

Noting that Visa this week officially renewed its marketing agreements with the the tourist bureaus of Vancouver and Whistler up to 2010, she said that Visa will be "showcasing Vancouver and Whistler as destinations, something that we are already actively involved with."

The marketing plans occur through several main categories -- advertising, promotion, Visa member programs, merchant programs, credit-card designs, premium merchandise and various on-site activities.

Advertising, she says, has to keep rigid control to include the "Look of the Games" for each Olympics, and the branding usually has to deal with photography in the ads, and that unless the branding marks are strong, they can easily get lost in the photography. If their relatively weak, she says, "you end up with a lot of white box things going on," a reference to ad designers putting the logo in a white box to enable it to have some viewership. "But that separates the message from the emblem, and that's not so good for the ad or the marketing."

Rowland says that promotional events are the ways sponsors like Visa "get our chance to involve the masses, the public, in the Games, to allow them to touch a piece of the Games, to be a part of them. It's very important for us." She says that interactivity in shopping malls is also growing in use, such as kiosks that Visa sponsored where people could take part in virtual Game sports.

She says that some of the most stringently controlled applications of Olympic branding occurs with in-store merchant programs at point-of-sales materials, where the ability to communicate with customers at the retail level is brief and limited; the messages have to be kept simple. She offered examples of stand-ups, retail receipt marketing, bill presentation plates and the like. "All sponsors will face this one." And Rowland says, similar challenges occur in storefronts and store signage, or store banners. "We've discovered that if our branding here is successful, people will want to steal it, because it's so attractive, and it'll end up on E-Bay" She added, ruefully, "We've had some success in this area."

Merchandising is the most difficult for applications of marketing and branding, she says. "But it's highly important to VANOC, because merchandising sales will be a major source of funding." She says branding has to deal with embroidery, tone-on-tone issues and adding logos to such things as cups, bags, corporate gifts, caps and shirts, to name just a few.

Designers working with all types of marketing will often take just pieces of Olympic emblems and incorporate them into their merchandise designs or couple them with other logos.

"One of the most enduring -- and Vancouver is in for it just like every other Olympics -- is lapel pins. People just go crazy over them, and if they're really attractive, they become collectors' items and are traded at Games for years afterward," Rowland says.

She reminded marketers that one of the conditions of the Games is that they be clean of marketing symbols where areas, such as venues, will be seen by TV cameras -- "it has to be clean within the camera space", as she put it. That means that there is limited ability in those areas to do brand marketing, although it's possible if brands are already on items that might move in and out of the space, such as the side of vans.

Some unusual places where Olympic branding has turned up? She offers a handful: on hockey-game boards, hospitality cards, in children's art displays, on sales receipts... and in conference overhead slides.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 10, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Business| #373
MARKETER SAYS CANADIANS HOT ABOUT OLYMPICS, ESPECIALLY DURING WINTER

The senior marketing consultant for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee says that marketers working on plans for sponsoring the Winter Games in Vancouver's mild temperatures need to keep in mind that at least some of the Games will take place in chilly temperatures.

To make her point during today's mild summer Vancouver weather, she wore a costume assembled from earlier Winter Games -- a thick winter coat and heavy red pants from the Calgary Olympics, muk-luks (a type of Inuit moccasin-style boot), and she held a Canadian toque designed by Roots Canada for the 2002 Salt Lake City Games that became a consumer sensation when worn by the Canadian team.

Harmon is responsible for developing VANOC's marketing plan's sponsorship and licensing revenues section, and her research shows that Canadians have a connection to Olympic values that's the equal of others in the world -- in some cases, stronger -- but that B.C. residents connection is somewhat weaker than the average Canadians'.

Harmon notes that 25.5 million Canadians, according to market studies, watched Team Canada win the hockey gold championship at the Salt Lake City games on February 24, 2002. "That's 85% of Canada's population. There were more people watching the Game [via TV satellite] in GM Place than there were at the Salt Lake City Olympic arena." And, after recalling Nancy Green's performance in skiing or Silken Laumann's success in rowing, Canadians make participants into legends. "As a nation, Olympic Games are almost personal."

Harmon says that a consumer study of Canadian Olympic values done between February 17 and 24 shows that Canadians are consistent with the world in valuing the key principles of Olympic branding identified by the International Olympic Committee in other countries.

The study, done in French and English and averaging about 20 minutes per participant, involved 1,570 people 18 and older and is accurate to 3.17%, 19 times out of 20 for Canada, and 4.9%, 19/20 for B.C. residents.

Eighty-two percent of Canadian consumers, she says, identified with 'very best', one of the main Olympic branding values, compared with 78% in B.C., Canadians agreed "peace and harmony", another key branding value, 82% in Canada, 75% in B.C., "something for everyone", 69% and 67%.

Harmon says that the power of Olympic-branded materials is also significant. She noted that Petro-Canada offered drinking glasses through their gas station chain outlets for two years surrounding the Calgary Olympics, and during that time, more than 50 million glasses were sold, prompting Petro-Canada to set up several charitable operations with some of the proceeds.

And, she says, Canadians are significantly more likely to take the Games seriously. "During the Salt Lake City Games," she says, "49% of Canadians at large scheduled their lives around the timing of specific Olympic events, compared with 31% of people in countries that won five or more medals and 24% of people in all participating countries. Fifty-seven percent of Canadians would watch events at times when people don't normally watch TV when it comes to the Olympics. I'm told that every time there was an Olympic hockey game on at Calgary, most Canadians left work at 3 pm to watch it."

Specific winter sports hold considerable interest for Canadians, she says. "Ninety-four percent of Canadians TV viewers were interested in Canadian Olympic hockey, 84% for speedskating and 65% for curling."

RESOURCES

Petro-Canada's Olympic Torch Fund commemorative glassware story:
http://www.petro-canada.ca/eng/about/communityinvestment/7119.htm

ESPN's report on the 2002 Canadian Hockey gold-medal win:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/winter02/hockey/index

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 10, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #372
MARKETING STRATEGIST DETAILS CONSUMER PERCEPTION OF OLYMPIC BRAND

The vice-president of the International Olympic Committee's exclusive marketing agency says that the IOC's latest international public opinion surveys show there is a strong consensus around the world about the perceptions consumers have about the Olympic brand.

Christy McLeod, vice-president of marketing strategy for Meridian Management in Atlanta, Georgia, said in Vancouver that the in-depth surveys done in 16 languages, including one earlier this year in Canada, show remarkable consistency. "The research if we provide a selection of words shows that overall they choose a feeling of peace, of harmony, of something for everybody. When they are shown the Rings [the Olympic logo] and asked to choose the words that define them for themselves, without our suggestions, the same response comes up over and over again, no matter what the language: respectful, trustworthy, dynamic, striving, friendship, participation, eternal, heritage, peaceful, celebration, dignified."

McLeod is responsible for the IOC's marketing strategy development as well as brand management and marketing communication activities. These include developing and managing Olympic brand activities, such as the current promotional campaign, "Celebrate Humanity", which is a series of 12 TV ads about the Olympics. They feature notables such as Canadian singer Avrill Lavigne, the UN's Kofi Annan, South Africa's Nelson Mandella, American actor Christopher Reeve and Italy's blind tenor Andrea "Andrew" Bocelli, among others, all extolling Olympic values. McLeod also works with sponsors of the Olympics on the top level in Olympic marketing.

She says there are eight main concepts that are most important to consumers, and with which people most closely identify: Dynamic, best, participation, strength, friendship, eternal, respectful and trustworthy.

McLeod says these Olympic attributes are also highly important for any marketer who wants to tap into the strength of the Olympic brand. "What's just as important," she says, "is that consumers don't just talk about [attributes such as "being the best, respectful, trustworthiness], they believe them."

She says that the Games are unique for a marketer when compared with other sporting events because there is "a combination of dynamic and altruistic values" connected with them. For example, she says, many of the athletes who take part in the Olympics say that, for them, the most rewarding part was marching into the Opening ceremonies, even if they win a medal. That's why the Opening Ceremony is, she says, one of the most-watched portions of the Olympics. "Everybody who watches wants to have a little glitter of that [the dynamic, altruistic values] in their lives... Consumers understand that it's about striving in the Games, not just winning."

Universally, McLeod says, the Olympics "unite the world in a cultural celebration of the pinnacle of sport," adding that consumers hold "close to their heart" additional ideas connected with the Games: hope, dreams and inspiration, joy and effort, friendship and fair play."

The IOC's marketing, she says, aims to combine those into a "powerful consumer connection." Vancouver 2010, she adds, can already count on these Olympic values being important, particularly, she says, when they are "combined with the passion in every Canadian I've met since Vancouver won the Games."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 10, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #371
VANCOUVER, WHISTLER GETTING ATTENTION AS 2010 GAMES DEVELOP - FURLONG

Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee CEO John Furlong told about 350 professional designers in Vancouver today that people in various parts of the world are starting to look at Vancouver and Whistler a year after winning the 2010 bid a year ago, saying, "the microscope is on us now."

He told the group, who are taking part in a day-long conference hosted by VANOC to provide background on how an Olympic logo is used, that, "once you get inside the Olympic Games, it grabs you and it won't let go."

Furlong said that people in Vancouver and Whistler are "strongly attracted to our natural environment, and [the effect of] that will appear throughout the Games over the coming years."

During a half-hour presentation -- during which he outlined some of the values that are important to people in Vancouver, Whistler, the rest of Canada and in the Olympic movement -- he said one of the most important values was to provide an equal opportunity: "Every child must get a chance to play a part... this is our story."

The designers are vying for a C$25,000 national prize in a competition that will choose the Vancouver Olympics logo by February.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 10, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Sports| #370
2010 DIRECTOR TO AWARD SCOTT A BELATED GOLD MEDAL FOR SALT LAKE CITY WIN

One of the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee will present Canadian cross-country skier Beckie Scott with a Olympic gold medal for Scott's performance at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Charmaine Crooks, who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee, will present the 29-year-old Scott with the medal during a June 25 ceremony at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Scott is from Vermilion, Alberta,

This will be Scott's third medals ceremony. Scott was actually third across the finish line in the women's five-kilometre pursuit in 2002, and by doing so became the first woman in North America to win a cross-country Olympic medal, a bronze.

She was moved to second place when silver medallist Larissa Lazutina of Russia was disqualified for doping charges. Scott received the silver medal in a ceremony last October in Calgary. Then, earlier this year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland stripped the gold from the first-place Russian, Olga Danilova, also for doping infractions, thus moving Scott to first in the contest.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 10, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Government| #368
FURLONG, LAUMANN AND CAMPBELL OFFER INSPIRATION TO DESIGNERS

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, Vancouver 2010 Olympics Committee CEO John Furlong and Canadian Olympian silver medallist Silken Laumann all gave speeches in Vancouver tonight aimed at inspiring designers gathered for a VANOC conference in the city tomorrow.

They spoke at a reception at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre to a room of about 200 people, designers and other marketing professionals, as well as to some of the members of the VANOC Board of Directors. The attendees to the conference came from as far away as Halifax, the United States and England to take part in the Canadian-only contest to design the 2010 Olympic logo.

Furlong said that by the same time tomorrow night, the group would be exhausted, "lying on the ground, panting, like Olympians after a race." He said that during the day, they would "hear about the high goals we have set for ourselves, and how we are going to reach them... I hope you will leave here tomorrow even more proud to be a Canadian... to share in a genuine piece of Canadian history."

Laumann, a retired rower who became famous for recovering from a bad leg injury only a month before her silver-medal winning performance, said that she became inspired about the 2010 Winter Games following a conversation she had with Furlong about four weeks ago. "He re-ignited the passion in me that I have for the Olympic Games, the passion, energy and intensity -- and hard work -- it takes to become an Olympian.

Laumann, who was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame last May, said that "sitting in a small wooden boat on your butt rowing backward taught me a lot about life. I think I set a personal record for tipping over into the water 21 times, and climbing back in again. That taught me a lot about life, too." She said the 2010 Games were not about "risk management, venue construction or creating good will. That's part of it, but that's not what it's about. To be an Olympian, you have to pull from a very deep place... and it's only after you've got there can you say 'I've done enough.'"

She told the audience that one of the jobs the 2010 Winter Games would have to accomplish is to leave inspiration in the hearts of children. She said that she was only a girl when she was fascinated by watching Olympian gymnast Nadia Comaneci win gold at the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics. Comaneci, she said, inspired her to take part in the Olympic movement.

Laumann also urged her audience to think of Furlong, VANOC chairman Jack Poole and Campbell as "very important people." She said they would be the ones who were "essential to hold the vision of the Games" throughout the years leading up to 2010. "They're the ones who will keep the vision sacred. They've very important people -- all of them."

Campbell told the audience that during the bid phase, he met with Mike Levitt, Governor of Utah, which was then hosting the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. Campbell said Levitt told him that the Olympics transformed his state, that whether it was a banker, a server or a policeman, "they all got better at what they did. The Olympics gave a rise to what everybody in the state was doing." And, he added, "the light of the Olympic torch reflected in the eyes of a child" was what was most inspiring about the Olympics. "We want to exceed everybody's expectations," he told the crowd. "We want to exceed the expectations of athletes, the expectations of sponsors who are going to help us put on the games, and in particular the expectation of the visitors who are going to come and watch the Games."

RESOURCES

Silken Laumann's personal web site:
http://www.silkenlaumann.com/silken_1.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #367
IOC GRUMBLING ABOUT VENUE-CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULING AT ITALIAN WINTER OLYMPICS

Now that the bulk of the planning work for the Athens Olympic is done, the attention of the International Olympic Committee is turning to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. And it's begun fretting about development delays.

The Italian Games are about four years further into the development process than Vancouver 2010. Keeping an eye on it can be useful for getting a glimpse on how the 2010 Games might fare, however Italy is spending considerably more money than the Vancouver Olympic Committee because it needs to build most of its venues, whereas Vancouver is only building a few of them and using existing, renovated or modified, facilities for the rest. As well, Turino's alpine events are spread over a much larger geographical area than VANOC's.

The IOC today, 20 months away from opening, prodded Turoc, the Turin Olympic Organizing Committee, to speed up development of some of its venues, particularly the bobsled track, although the ski jump will be ready for training this winter. "Most construction is progressing well, but it needs to be accelerated for some key sites that have experienced delays or indecision," said an IOC spokesman.

The IOC commission overseeing the Torino Games, which has just finished its seventh tour of the venues, is also worried about a short-fall in accommodation at the Turin Games for those coming to see them. Reading between the lines of its comments, it's pressing hard for TUROC to provide a solution to the problem, but it didn't say how severe it is.

The chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for the Italian Games, Jean-Claude Killy, said only that, "Building the best stage for the world's top winter sports athletes requires providing much more than just physical facilities and the connections between them. It requires passion and commitment, imagination and teamwork."

Killy did, however, say that the IOC was pleased with Italy's "impressive plans for the Look of the Games, the mascot and Olympic torch."

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics is just starting the look-of-the-games process with its logo-design conference and competition.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #366
NEW WESTMINSTER, RICHMOND VYING FOR LOCATION OF SPEEDSKATING OVAL

The CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, John Furlong, says New Westminster and Richmond have expressed interest in having the C$44 million speed-skating oval moved to their communities if it can't be built as expected near Simon Fraser University.

Furlong says a decision won't be made until July about whether to move the oval, after geotechnical and cost issues made the project too expensive as outlined in the VANOC Bid Book approved by the International Olympic Committee last year. "We're all working just as hard as we can toward that decision," he says, noting that it is his preference the oval stay where it is.

Furlong says he doesn't want to discuss the specifics of the approaches made to VANOC by Richmond or New Westminster, but he says that the general locations have to be within the Greater Vancouver area so that athletes don't have to travel too far from their residence. Furlong said the oval, if it's not located on Burnaby Mountain, will have to stay within a circle centred on south False Creek in Vancouver, the location of the Athlete's Village in Vancouver, and with a diameter that can't be farther out than the distance in travelling time to Simon Fraser or the University of British Columbia.

The oval is to be built in 2006.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #365
FURLONG PREFERS CHEAKAMUS LOCATION FOR WHISTLER'S ATHLETE'S VILLAGE

The CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee says VANOC would prefer that Whistler choose the Cheakamus option as the site for the 2010 Whistler Athletes' Village.

Whistler City Council is to decide later this month on two prospective sites for the village, which will house about 5,000 athletes and coaches, including the Cheakamus South site across the Sea-to-Sky highway from Function Junction and a site between Alpine Meadows and Emerald Estates. Three other locations were earlier rejected by the community because they involved significant new development in the Callaghan Valley after the Games. These two sites are part of what's known as the in-fill option, where housing, to be used by the resort community's employees after the Games, is easier to service.

John Furlong said that everybody involved is interested in providing the best experience for the athletes -- "that's our prime motivation, after all -- and he says that for a number of reasons the Cheakamus site would be the best overall to accomplish that.

Furlong says that once the choice is made, VANOC and Whistler will have some discussions about the property, and then he would make the recommendations to the International Olympic Committee at the next briefing, which is in July. He sidestepped questions about whether the IOC would make the final decision on whether the choice Whistler Council makes would be confirmed or overturned. "The relationship between Whistler and us [VANOC] and the IOC is excellent," he says. "We're all on the same page. We just want the best experience for the athletes."

There has been a suggestion that if the Cheakamus site is chosen, a nearby garbage landfill would need to be closed and the community switch to alternative waste-management, and a C$20 million upgrade to a nearby waste-water treatment facility would be undertaken to, in part, deal with odour.

Meanwhile, Furlong says the two-month delay in the Official Development Plan for the area of Vancouver that includes the Vancouver Athletes' Village does not concern him at this stage. Behind the scenes discussions over changes to policy affecting housing and parks by Vancouver City Council are pushing the appearance of the ODP at City Council for approval from July to September.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #364
TWO, MAYBE THREE, EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENTS COULD BE KNOWN SOON

The CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, John Furlong, says that the quantity of quality applicants has slowed the hiring process for his five executive vice-president, but he hopes to be able to make recommendations to the Board next week on two, and possibly three of the executives. It's understood that several hundred applicants have sent resumes for each of the positions. "We had to slow down, just to make sure we were doing the right thing and focusing on the right people."

The first two are the Senior Vice President, Human Resources and the Senior Vice President, Sports. The possible third is the Senior Vice President of Revenue and Marketing. The other two -- Senior Vice President, Olympic Services and the Senior Vice President of Venue Development -- will be chosen later.

The positions furthest along will be reviewed in the next few days by a meeting of the VANOC Board of Directors' Human Resources Committee, chaired by Michael Phelps, which helped choose Furlong. It will meet before the next full Board meeting, which is sent for June 16. Furlong hopes to be able to have "as many as possible" of the senior executives chosen by the time he and his team leave to observe the Athens Olympic Games, which start in mid-August.

"We have to have them as soon as possible," says Furlong, "for internal reasons as well. We've got a lot of work to do, and we need to start bringing in people to share the load."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #363
LOGO-DESIGN RULES RELEASED FOR 'CORNERSTONE' OF 2010 GAMES LOOK AND FEEL

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee has released the rules of its logo-design competition on the eve of a design conference, calling the resulting emblem the cornerstone of the look and feel of the Games for more than a billion people around the world.

A day-long design conference will be held tomorrow in Vancouver, following a reception tonight hosted Premier Gordon Campbell and VANOC CEO John Furlong and including Olympian rower Silken Laumann. The conference will brief more than 300 Canadian design professionals from across the country on the values and technical issues involved in designing the emblem. Furlong says the reason the competition is so important is that whatever design is chosen as the Games' logo, it will be the basis for the entire image of the Games in print and in broadcast, and in every marketing aspect. The colour scheme of the Games and the pictographs used to direct people will all be derived from the theme of the logo.

It will be used on promotions, promotional and informational publications, on merchandise, cultural and educational programs, volunteer activities, the torch relay and so on.

The competition is open only to Canadian design, advertising or creative professionals, firms, agencies, organizations and individuals engaged in the development of brand identities, visual communications, marketing and imaging strategies. Canadian students enrolled in a recognized post-secondary design programs are also eligible." Submitters must be 19, Canada's age of majority, or older. It does not matter if an entrant attends the design conference. The competition is closed to anybody connected with the Games or their immediate families.

The Graphic Designs Association of Canada has reluctantly allowed its members to enter, though the competition concept clashes with its ethical guidelines, while Stuart Ince, the president of the Advertising Agency Association of B.C. says his organization, is "fully behind" this initiative. "The chance to hear the Olympic design story and enter the logo competition is a rare opportunity to participate in such a high profile, international event. The challenge for agencies to visually express Canada's identity, the vision of the Vancouver 2010 Games, and the values of the Olympic movement to a global audience is truly exciting," Ince says.

The decision to limit the competition to Canadians breaks with Olympic tradition, which has, up till now, allowed anybody in the world to enter, although the logo design competitions of Athens, Beijing and Salt Lake City were all won by nationals of the host country. This is only the fourth time that a design conference has been held as part of the process. The first was for Atlanta's Summer Olympics.

Olympic design expert, George Hirthler, of Hirthler & Partners, calls the decision to limit the competition to Canadians in the face of Olympic tradition "a bold, courageous move" on VANOC's part. However, Furlong said the IOC had no objections to the decision. "The IOC is about tradition in part, but it's also about change, growth and transfer of knowledge," he said.

VANOC's budget for the entire project is C$250,000, including the C$25,000 prize for the winner, the design conference at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, the presenters honorariums and travel costs, and the judging.

The deadline for submissions is 18:00 Pacific time September 15, 2004. Each proponent will be able to provide up to three designs, and they must be set up according to the lengthy list of rules posted on VANOC's website. And each must be accompanied by a legal form, also available on the website, that turns full control of each design over to VANOC for ever. The designs that are not chosen will be archived by VANOC for historical study but will not otherwise be used.

Between September and October, the entries will be judged by an international design panel yet to be chosen. VANOC is not bound by the panel's decisions or recommendations. Once the VANOC decides on its choice or short list, likely in October, it will discuss the design with the International Olympic Committee, which will make the final choice. The decision will be announced in a news conference in February, but it is expected to be on February 12, 2005, which marks five years from the opening ceremonies.

Each design has to "capture and reflect the unique image and sprit of Canada, Vancouver and Whistler, capture both Canada's passion for winter sport, and the energy and excitement of the Olympic Winter Games, reflect Canada's love and commitment toward our spectacular natural environment" and, among other things, "Embody Canada's values and aspirations, celebrating our diversity and inclusiveness." It must also incorporate the phrase "Vancouver 2010" and the Olympic rings logo, but the integrity of the rings has to be respected. The IOC has strict guidelines over how they are used and presented.

Theodora Mantzaris-Kindel, the winner of the competition to design the Athens logo who went on to become the manager of the Image and Identity department of the Athens Organizing Committee, said that her logo was involved in more than 5,000 separate applications, ranging from tiny pins to huge venue-display banners, and is appearing on a significant range of clothing and other merchandise. Mantzaris-Kindel, who lost her luggage on the flight to Vancouver, will one of the presenters at the design conference tomorrow.

The winner of the 2010 emblem competition doesn't automatically get the equivalent job at the VANOC "Look of the Games" department. Once the logo competition is finalized, VANOC will put the job out for competitive bid, or may decide to hire internal staff to deal with it.

As for the Paralympic Games, VANOC will "assess", at the end of the Olympic Games competition, the best design-development process for the Paralympic emblem. It will decide, with input from the International Paralympic Committee, the "extent, if any, to which the emblem or related works will be used for the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games." Hirthler said the two games are separate events and each should have its own process.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #359
TODAY'S MOGULS

Here are a couple of moguls we've bumped into today...

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, worried about whatever new logo they select will become corrupted or misused, is exploring software technology that electronically shreds a logo that is improperly downloaded. Currently, its technically quite easy for anybody to take the image of the logo off the VANOC website. "We've seen lots of instances where our logo has been bastardized all over the place. People can download it off our website and modify it," says VANOC Communications director Sam Corea.
The official and voluminous Request for Proposal documents for the C$60 million Nordic Centre and the C$31 million Sliding Centre, the first of the 2010 Olympic Venues, are nearly ready to be sent out to the companies who earlier this year formally asked to be considered. A briefing conference for the firms on the project, which involves a tour of the venues, is tentatively scheduled by VANOC for June 17 -- it could still be moved -- and the RFP will be going out before that. The RFP marks the first step in the construction process. Construction of the two locations, in the Callaghan Valley near Whistler, is expected to start next spring. The main outlines of the projects were published earlier:
43 companies interested in working on 2010 Nordic and Sliding Centres"
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:248:Published:4/14/2004]
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 9, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #362
FURLONG TO CIRCULATE AS LOGO DESIGN COMPETITION RAMPS UP

The CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, John Furlong, will be making himself available quite a bit over the next few days as VANOC's logo-design conference and competition for professional designers gets underway in Vancouver.

For instance, he'll be meeting the news media and introducing some of the panelists that will be presenting their views on the significance of the VANOC logo tomorrow morning at 10:00 (all times Pacific), while at 17:30 he, B.C. premier Gordon Campbell and a Olympian silver medallist, former rower Silken Laumann, will be at a reception at Canada Place.

Furlong will also be one of the keynote speakers at 08:30 Thursday as he opens the day-long conference for more than 200 designers.

The idea of the conference is to detail the history of the Olympic logos, one of the key internationally recognized brands, the values behind it, and how they must come together during the competition to represent Vancouver 2010 during the next eight years, until 2012.

RESOURCES

A PDF file outlining the agenda for the conference:
http://tinyurl.com/3fq8n

Silken Lauman website:
http://www.canoe.ca/OlympicsCanadaLaumann/home.html

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 8, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Government, Business| #361
C$200,000 OF FORESTRY FUNDING TO BE AVAILABLE FOR 2010 DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION EXPERTISE

Premier Gordon Campbell says that part of the C$16.1 million in funding his government is making available to market B.C. wood products worldwide and for forest research will also be used to promote the use of B.C. wood to people who come to the province for the 2010 Winter Games.

Campbell says a portion of the marketing funding - C$8.6 million - will promote wood construction across North America, expand markets of cedar as an alternative to plastics and vinyl, market B.C. hemlock to Japan -- and maximize the use of wood in facilities built for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. "When people leave the Olympics, we want them to remember one word: wood," Campbell says, proclaiming. "We are the gold medallists when it comes to wood products."

The money will be funneled through the Province’s subsidiary, Forestry Innovation Investment Ltd., Additional funds from the forest industry and federal contributions bring the value of the distribution to more than$ C20 million during the 2004/2005 fiscal year.

Christine Kennedy, president of Forestry Innovation Investment of Vancouver says about C$200,000 "in round numbers" will be devoted to the Vancouver 2010 aspect as her organization works with a consortium of industry groups, with the funding to start being used this year.

Some of the funds will be used, she says, to provide expertise to the 2010 venue designers on the use of B.C. wood, such as ensuring code compliance and variation to ensure the projects live up to the equivalent of the LEED standard as promised by the Vancouver Bid Book to the International Olympic Committee.

She was careful, however, to note that her organization would not be favouring one standard over the other; there is some industry controversy over the use of the American-based LEED standard, which has been used in other IOC-sanctioned construction, versus "roughly equivalent standards" used by the B.C. industry. "There are always going to be variations to building codes," she says.

But she says, expertise would also be provided in a number of different ways to the design and construction of venues such as ensuring architects and engineers understand how fire codes and building codes work involving wood, wood selection, or how, say, wood is used adjacent to foundations. The expertise will be particularly applied to engineered wood, she says, "The idea is to ensure that wood is used well and efficiently," she says, noting that B.C. has "a few" architects and engineers that are knowledgeable about using B.C. wood, but there is a need to expand that number.

"It's an opportunity to maximize how wood is used for the Games," she says.

"We are not just looking at this as an opportunity for the 2010 Games," says Kennedy, "We're looking at the use of B.C. wood in 2010 buildings as a huge opportunity to market B.C. wood use internationally by showing the world how we've used wood in building the venues."

While she notes that the C$200,000 is "modest" compared to the overall funding, she says that additional amounts in the next few years will vary according to the requirements of the building cycle. For instance, she says, funding would rise during the planning of buildings, drop somewhat during construction, then rise again as the buildings can be used as examples in marketing.

"We're still working on the planning schedules for those funds," she notes, although architectural planning for the C$65 million Nordic Centre and the C$31 million Sliding Centre in the Callaghan Valley, north of Whistler, is expected to start this fall. "Design teams always have time constraints, and we'll be helping them deal with ramping up their knowledge about the use of wood."

Forestry Innovation Investment is owned by the B.C. government and managed through a Board of Directors made up of the Deputy Ministers of Forests, Finance, and the ministry Competition, Science and Enterprise, as well as its management. FII works mostly through annual funding agreements with industry associations and institutions, each of which submit proposals to meet program objectives. FII is a funding mechanism and investment monitoring company, with the recipients managing the delivery of project activities.

In this particular case, says Kennedy, the program involves the Canadian Wood Council, the Council of Forest Industries, Coast Forest and Lumber Association, the Wood Promotion Network and Forintek Canada Corporation.

RESOURCES

Christine Kennedy
President
Forestry Innovation Investment Ltd.
Suite 1200, 1130 West Pender Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia
V6E 4A4 Canada

Telephone 604.685.7507
Fax 604.685.5373
http://www.forestry-innovation.bc.ca

--
Canadian Wood Council
http://www.cwc.ca

The Council of Forest Industries
http://www.cofi.org

Coast Forest and Lumber Association
http://www.cfla.org

Forintek Canada Corporation
http://www.forintek.ca

Wood Promotion Network:
http://www.woodisgood.org

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 8, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business, IOC, VANOC| #360
VISA TO SPEND "MILLIONS" WITH TOURISM VANCOUVER, WHISTLER ON 2010 MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS AFTER 2006

Visa announced today the renewal of a comprehensive agreement with Tourism Vancouver to promote Vancouver domestic and international travel in the run up to, and during, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. It also confirmed our reports last month of a similar deal with Tourism Whistler.

The marketing agreements include the 2010 Games after 2006, but involve other promotional activities by Visa and the tourism organizations as well.

Visa Canada President Derek Fry of Toronto made the announcement today at a luncheon speech given to the Vancouver Board of Trade, but he declined to discuss the value of the arrangements for competitive reasons. However the deals, which he described as "multi-million dollar global agreements" will offer Visa cardholders "worldwide value-added offers and incentives to visit Vancouver and Whistler," which tourism officials expect to spur tourism spending in Western Canada. The agreements, which were formally signed this month, run until the end of 2010.

Over the span of the agreements, Fry says that "Visa will work closely with Tourism Vancouver and Tourism Whistler to create unique programs to benefit the region's travel and merchant community." The sponsorships include advertising as well as joint marketing programs to promote Vancouver and Whistler as key travel destinations. "This early start on destination marketing will help ensure unparalleled international exposure for the Vancouver-Whistler area leading up to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games."

However Vancouver Tourism executive vice-president Paul Valee says that such marketing programs will not begin until after the 2006 Torino winter games are completed so the marketing messages about which games are where will not get confused in the minds of tourists. He confirms that there will be both a cash infusion -- again, undisclosed -- plus a value-added component for the tourism bodies and their members. The cash portion will help pay for marketing campaigns and sponsoring conferences or seminars, he says. The valued-added portion will deal with co-marketing programs involving the memberships of the organizations. "We'll be doing it wherever it makes sense," he adds, "such as travel, hotels, entertainment."

Visa Canada joined forces with the Vancouver tourism bureau three years ago in an effort to spur tourism and spending in the region through the use of the credit card. Travel and entertainment represents more than 18% of Visa's annual sales in Canada.

Visa is one of the International Olympic Committee's so-called "TOP" sponsors. It buys sponsorship of a package of Olympic Games at a time to allow it to use the Olympic branding throughout the world and have a monopoly over credit-card use at Olympic Games. Visa's package that includes the 2010 Games is believed to have cost about US$62 million, but that, too, has not been officially disclosed. As a result of the TOP sponsorship, over which the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee has no direct control, Visa will be the only credit card it can use for the sale of 2010 tickets, merchandise, food and beverage sales at any of the 2010 Games venues.

Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee CEO John Furlong said he welcomed the arrangements, "We've become well acquainted with what a force they [Visa] are for good." Furlong said that during the bid phase, he was told to talk to Visa and Coca-Cola, another TOP sponsor, about what Vancouver would need to help win the bid. He travelled, he said, to California, to talk to Visa's Tom Shephard and spoke with him "for a couple of hours." Furlong said, "He asked me what my vision was for the Vancouver Games. I told him I'd like to find a way to make the games relevant to every part of the world. He said, 'We can help you deliver that. The greater the partnership, the greater the deliverability.' We can expect great support from our partners, and Visa has earned its stripes... it's a partnership that's important to us."

Furlong also said he recalled, years ago as an athlete, travelling through east Africa from Nairobi to a competition and discovering the extent of Visa's branding. "We came to a remote, forested area and there, tacked to a tree, was a card with the Visa symbol. One of my companions said: 'Visa, in millions of places and on one tree."

Through its Olympic-related marketing programs, Fry says that Visa drives incremental business to local merchants. "During the [2002 Salt Lake Winter] games," he says, "surrounding areas saw sales of Visa payment cards increase 30% over the same period in 2001. For Athens 2004, Visa member [financial institutions] in 56 countries are activating Olympic-related marketing programs. This bodes well for Vancouver and Whistler in 2010."

The renewed agreements allows the three organizations to collaborate on Olympic promotion planning for the 2010 Games. Through these alliances, VISA cardholders will have exclusive-use programs for accommodations at participating hotels, and special offers for goods and services purchased on a VISA card within various retail, dining, attraction, spa, sightseeing and car rentals firms. Notes Fry,"It means that not only will Canadian Visa cardholders have access to value-added offers and promotional information about Vancouver and Whistler, but every Visa cardholder in the world [will also do so.] All one billion of them."

Vallee says that Vancouver and Whistler merchants who are members of Tourism Vancouver or Tourism Whistler under the agreements will eventually be able to display point-of-sale materials featuring the official VISA and Olympic sponsorship symbols, including signage, posters, window decals, counter signs, cheque presenters and tip trays to encourage customers to use their Visa card and associate the merchant with Olympic branding.

Fry told the luncheon, "Over the last 10 years, Visa Canada has contributed millions of dollars to Canada's national men's and women's bobsleigh teams. We have high hopes for both teams at the Olympic Winter Games in Turin, and of course here [in Vancouver] in 2010." The bobsleigh teams are the only direct winter sports beneficiaries of Visa support, and Fry indicates that though that sponsorship will continue, his job now is to deal with Visa involvement at a much higher and wider level, such as the tourism arrangements. This year, for instance, Visa began supporting the Paralympic Games as well. "Visa remains committed to the Olympic Games for two very simple reasons," he says, "Number one, it's the right thing to do; and, number two, it's good for Visa's business... we see the Olympic Games sponsorship as the classic win-win proposition, when the corporate interest and the community interest coincide."

RESOURCES

Visa Toronto's key contacts on implementing the renewed agreements:

Erica Yoshida
Advertising & Sponsorships: 416.367.8472
E-mail: askvisacanada@visa.com
with "Advertising & Sponsorships" in the subject line.

Mail
Advertising & Sponsorships
Visa Canada Association
P.O. Box 124
Toronto, ON
M5H 3Y2

--

Rick Antonson, President or
Paul Vallee
Executive Vice-President
Tourism Vancouver
210, 200 Burrard St.
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
V6C 3L6

Direct phone for Vallee: 604.631.2815
E-mail: PVallee@TourismVancouver.com

http://www.TourismVancouver.com

--
Tourism Whistler
4010 Whistler Way
Whistler, BC
V0N 1B4

Administration
From Vancouver: 1.604.932.3928 (long distance)
From Whistler: 604.932.3928

http://www.mywhistler.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 8, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #358
TELUS, KIDSPORT AND COSTLESSEXPRESS TEAM UP TO HELP POOR KIDS PARTICIPATE IN SPORTS

One of the sponsors of the 2010 Winter Games bid, Telus Communications, says it is teaming up with Kid Sport and a bottled-water distributor to help raise funds for poor children in B.C. to play sports.

Kid Sport is the charitable division of Sport BC that provides grants to low-income children to cover the costs of sport registration fees. Organizations and individuals can buy KidSport bottled water for
events this summer by contacting Costless Express at a toll-free number.

Rob Cruickshank, executive vice-president of Strategic Bid Solutions at Telus, says that proceeds from the sale of the water will directly help all kids play a season of sport.

Telus's bid sponsorship expires at the end of this year. Telus and Bell Canada are expected to bid for Vancouver 2010's communications sponsorship when the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee begins accepting sponsorships early next year.

RESOURCES

Costless Express's bottled water phone number, toll free: 1-888-444-4549

It can also be purchased over the web, though it is not intuitive to find. Here's how: go to...

http://www.costlessexpress.com

... And type "KidSport" (without the quote marks) in the site's search engine.

Kidsport:
<http://www.sport.bc.ca/Content/KidSport/%20KidSport%20Main.asp

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on June 8, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #357
VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL ATTENTION REPORTEDLY SLOWING ATHLETE'S VILLAGE PLANNING SLIGHTLY

The cause of delays in bringing the Official Development Plan for the South-east False Creek area of Vancouver, where the Vancouver Athlete's Village is to be located, is reportedly due to the aldermen of Vancouver City Council, which is quite a hands-on council, finally turning its attention to what it would like to see in the overall plan for the area.

The ODP, covering a total of 50 acres along the shore of False Creek in downtown Vancouver, was originally scheduled to be heading for city council approval in late July, and City Manager Judy Rogers, as late as last Friday, was still thinking that was the case, however adjustments to policies covering various amenities by council are said to be pushing the ODP delivery date back to September.

The Vancouver Athlete's village is only a part of the ODP - it covers about 12 acres - and its delivery and timing is not driving the scheduling at this point. Unlike many other VANOC venues, the Village is not due to be completed until 2009; that's so that construction costs can be managed and so the buildings don't stand finished but empty for too long before the estimated 5,000 athletes and coaches arrive to use them.

The back-of-the-envelope scheduling means that various issues dealing with the land will occupy the scheduling between now and 2007, as well as council changes to social-housing and other amenities for the legacy portion of the grounds. The other main issues include environmental remediation, a provincial government responsibility, to clean up the property and grounds, which have been used for nearly a century by industry, and False Creek sediment issues, a federal government responsibility, but also derived, in part, by the long-term industrial use.

Although the decision was made recently to cluster the Village around a commercial area on the property instead of having the commercial area strung along First Avenue, the issues that affect the soil and water remediation have to do with planning how the property itself will be shaped and used. The International Olympic Committee Commission that oversees the 2010 work was reportedly advised of the change from the preliminary layout to the clustering layout during its inspection tour last April, though VANOC has yet to mention it.

In general terms, these issues and planning will occupy the time between now and 2007, when preliminary planning will change toward detailed architectural work on the Athlete's Village and its support services Construction of the Village is to start in 2008 for completion in the third quarter of 2009.