Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #2288
BELL OLYMPICS VP SAYS 2010 SPONSORSHIP DEAL TURNING OUT TO BE COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFULThe vice-president of Corporate and Olympic Marketing for Bell Canada says the company's 30-month-old, six-year sponsorship deal with the 2010 organizing committee has been a significant success for the firm commercially and socially.
Loring Phinney -- who was hired from his job as vice-president of the Vancouver-base PR agency Cossette Communications to the newly created position in June, 2005 -- is responsible for Bell's sponsorship programs, marketing of its rights to Olympic and 2010 branding, Bell's National Events Team and the company's philanthropic and community-investment programs. He is also responsible for the company's community affairs nationally and its corporate communications in Western Canada. The sponsorship was announced October 18, 2004.
"Our enterprise clients want to know how these Games are going to benefit them," he says. "The reality is that the build-out of our technology and how we're managing our VANOC client, is a great microcosm of how we actually want to run our business... every piece of the company that can be relevant to delivering the flawless Games is involved."
Phinney, in a lengthy interview with Morgan:News:2010, says there is more than one way to answer a question about whether Bell's C$200-million sponsorship deal with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) -- one of the largest Olympic sponsorships ever fashioned -- has been worthwhile to the company.
"Especially in western Canada," says Phinney, who says Bell had a team of about 30 people who travelled to the Torino Games to see behind the scenes how it would do things the same, or differently, for 2010. "I think we are already seeing positive signs of the sponsorship success coming out of [the Torino Winter Olympic Games] last year, with momentum heading into Beijing next year. But ultimately, with our [technology] build-out, our proofs will be in 2010, when we deliver the Games. We're optimistic and we feel bouyed by our success to date, but we'll see it in 2010. That's where the rubber will hit the road."
The deal gave Bell wide-ranging marketing and branding rights for the 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games and their Canadian Olympic teams, among many other things, and VANOC has already begun receiving the annual cash payments portion of Bell's sponsorship funding, while Bell has largely completed the main fibre-optic links that will enable VANOC's venues to be linked for high-speed data flows and high-bandwidth broadcasting feeds.
Bell, in turn, is now involved in a wide range of corporate and community-relations activities connected with supporting the 2010 Games and the BC government's 2010=related programs. In addition, the Montreal-based firm, which is dominant in eastern Canada, has become much more competitive in western Canada, territory traditionally held by its corporate rival, Telus, thanks to Bell's decision to take part in Olympic-related tours by 2010 Legacies Now of the province's cities that have had a strong business component to its audiences.
Establishing a competitive beachhead in western Canada, armoured with the big guns of the Olympic brands, has opened a lot of doors for Bell's major corporate divisions -- its about to start work, for instance, on a recently funded C$360,000 technology project, unrelated to the Olympics, with the City of Vancouver -- and that strategic move was one of the major business rationales for securing the sponsorship.
"When we looked at the opportunity of being part of the 2010 Olympics -- and we've been a part of the Olympic movement for a long time as a partner of the Canadian Olympic Committee -- we knew the value of the brand association with the Olympics. We saw it from three different perspectives," says Phinney. "On a local level, the Olympics allows us to accelerate our growth in the west. We have great growth trajectories on both the consumer and business units in the west, and we saw this as a great way to accentuate and accelerate that. We were already growing; this was a way to grow a little faster by putting the infrastructure in the ground. But at the same time, one of the biggest benefits we brought was because of Bell's national scope, we have the ability to promote and speak to the values of the Olympics across the country. That's why we call it 'Canada's Games'. We want to make it clear that our 28 million customer connections enable us to promote our association with the Games in every community in the country."
The third perspective, Phinney says, is what he calls, "internal engagement," and he says its something that a lot of 2010 sponsors take seriously. "We understand that to compete with the new telecommunications infrastructure, we need to be performance-based. We really believe that the attributes of the Olympics, when you align that with performance culture change, is a great advantage for our people, to understand what it takes to change, what it takes to perform like an Olympian as we evolve our business."
To that end, Bell hires and uses nine Olympians as inspirational models for its employees, called the Bell Champions program. "We did that because we understood very quickly the link between athlete performance and corporate performance. One of our objectives this year is to have every employee hear an athlete's story. When we spoke to these athletes to find out how their performance linked up to our corporate DNA, we found an unbelievable linkage. You talk about facing adversity as an athlete, that lines up quite well in facing adversity in a company that's changing a lot. You talk about overcoming challenges by a Paralympian, and you understand what it's like to overcome challenges in a corporate environment. These Olympians are spectacular spokespeople for helping our people understand the connections. We know from our surveys of our employees that when people hear from an Olympian, they have a clearer sense of performance and what it means in their work environment."
Bell has activated its sponsorship in a range of diverse ways -- it's contributed C$15 million to a VANOC project called Own the Podium and other athlete-support programs, it sponsored production of the Bell Spirit of The Games TV series, Bell and VANOC have contributed C$3 million to the cost of building the Squamish - Lil'wat Cultural Centre in Whistler, it has contributed C$1 million to helping the troubled downtown east side of Vancouver -- a city hall issue, it has sponsored the Chill program that helps troubled teens with snowboarding lessons through 2010 Legacies Now, and it helped promote a tour by the popular Canadian band 'Barenaked Ladies' that raised C$50,000 for the Own the Podium program, for examples.
Phinney says all of these projects match Bell's corporate vision: accelerating corporate growth, being seen as part of 'Canada's Games' through brand association, and getting Bell's employees involved. "You can look at each of those disparate parts aligns. "Let's use the example of 'Barenaked Ladies'. One of our biggest strategies in our consumer division is provision of content. Our business unit is successful when people use their devices to access content. That band partnership does several things: it accentuates our relationship with the Olympics by speaking to the value of Own the Podium, it drives content over our platform that generates revenue across the board, it gives us hosting capacity for our enterprise clients in each market across the country, and it gives great opportunity to engage our people across the country."
The Olympics manager says Bell's role, which makes it different from other 2010 sponsors, is that its role involves how people will experience the Games. "When it's not Games-time, the ability of our products and services to be relevant, through things like the 'Barenaked Ladies' tour allow us to maintain a momentum throughout the lead-up to the Games. We also have a pretty great story to tell and we're building the communications infrastructure for the Games, so our ability to have something to say all the time is key. So you look at what we're providing: content and connectivity, [Olympic] brand -- as a piece of the equation but not by itself enough, and community.
Phinney says Bell wants to leave legacies in its market "that are relevant to our business, but we want to make sure that we are not being perceived that the Olympics is not the only thing we are about. If you look at the things we've done, and the announcements that we'll have coming in the short term, what you'll see is connective tissue that links them back to our key business objectives. They may look disparate, but they all align with our business trajectories."
He says that the unique aspect of the sponsorship for the company is that it has so many points of contact that it can activate its sponsorship in a wide number of ways between Olympic Games and still be relevant, unlike sponsors that have to wait until Games time interest is strong, which is in the few months immediately before, and during, the 2010 Games.
He says that while the company will focus some of its activation efforts on the Canadian Olympic team going to the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, it will continue to make announcements this year and next that will remind people of the company's link to the Own the Podium program, while talking about the company's technology. "How many other sponsors have the ability, every couple of months, to talk about our fibre-optics build, our wireless build, our Olympic-venue connectivity. There are some pretty interesting facts to be told as we build our first Internet Protocol Olympics." He notes that the company's technology stories are "strongly relevant" to its enterprise clients, and potential clients.
The tours that Bell has taken with 2010 Legacies Now as it goes from community to community in British Columbia, providing speakers to business about how to benefit from the Games, is also part of Bell's activation straegy, he says. "It's about brand-building, it's about being associated, it's about sharing our story. Hopefully, you'll be able to come to see the Legacies Now tour this year. What you'll see, in very rich content, is the role we play. That is our key differentiator. We are so unique to the flawless execution of these Games that it's a story that we must tell over and over."
Phinney says Bell's technological investment -- the fibre optic links between venues, the mobile broadcasting, possibly even the Nimiq 5 Bell satellite that is to be launched in 2009 to support high-definition TV broadcasting -- is part of the support for the 2010 Games and that during the Games, much or most of it will be dedicated to handling 2010's requirements. "At the end of the day, when we look at our infrastructure build, we saw it as a chance to accelerate our growth. And so putting a fibre ring to Whistler is critical to building our business along that corridor. Enhancing our wireless capacity along the Sea to Sky corridor actually enhances our business; it allows people to carry a signal direct, all the way along, on a Bell phone."
He adds that Bell's 2010 technology is state-of-the-art "in a cautious way," and that come 2010, the whole system will showcase Bell's capacity. "You'd be very impressed to see some of the schematics around my office... VANOC is making sure there are a lot of redundancy and back-up systems in place. You cannot afford to make a mistake during the Olympics."
Phinney says that during the next couple of years, Bell's marketing of 2010 will rise and fall with events, and that Bell, along with other sponsors, will be pacing themselves. "You can't go hard sell all the time. One of the pages in our program suggests that right now we be limited in market, in terms of our business units, but maintain a brand focus. So things like 2010 Legacies Now, Own the Podium, they maintain a low buzz. But, in fact, our focus right now is on internal culture change. We're taking the opportunity right now to build out the infrastructure of our internal communications plan."
Bell will provide about 600 employees from across the country "serving and delivering the technology solution here in Vancouver" and Whistler for the 2010 Games. "That's a wonderful opportunity for 600 people. It's also a huge logistical challenge. What we're looking at right now is how we identify those people. How do we create an incentive-based performance model, and ensure these people earn the right to this wonderful opportunity to be involved in the Games." Bell's people will be taking part in the Torch Relay, and providing support for other 2010 roles. For instance, he says, the company's sales incentives will be based around being able to go to Whistler in 2010.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 2, 2007
Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2287
Here are three moguls we ran into today:
OWN THE PODIUM TO CHART NEWEST COURSE ON FRIDAYDr. Roger Jackson, the CEO of Canada's Own the Podium 2010, is expected on Friday to outline how the C$110-million program, co-sponsored by VANOC negotiations with some of its corporate sponsors and the federal government, will focus its funding over the next 12 months. It's expected that the funding will be further focused to develop athletes who are most likely to win medals in the 2010 Winter Olympics than during its previous fiscal year. Own the Podium 2010 is a sport technical initiative -- it's Calgary-based officials are reluctant to call it a program -- designed to help Canada become the number one medal-winning nation at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, and to place in the top three medal-winning nations at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. Cathy Priestner Allinger, VANOC's executive vice president of Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management, as well as Chris Rudge, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee and Brian MacPherson, the CEO of the Canadian Paralympic Committee and also expected to be involved in the discussions.
VANOC OFFER TO ORCA BAY OVER GM PLACE REPORTED TO BE C$18 MILLION
News reports about the civil trial today over the ownership of Orca Bay, the company that owns General Motors Place, the prime hockey venue for the 2010 Winter Games, suggest that VANOC offered C$18 million for the use of the big downtown Vancouver arena for the time it would be occupied by the 2010 Games and its preparations. VANOC is currently expected to begin external and some internal work on GM Place starting in the summer of 2009, and then fully occupy the building about the end of January, 2010, when the rest of the conversion to its 2010 Games role will be completed. The Olympics will occupy it for February, 2010, then take a week to get it back into readiness for the return of the Vancouver Canucks NHL hockey team, which uses it as its home ice and which will have been on an extended five-week road trip during that time.
VANOC'S MAIN SPONSOR IN TOUGH FIGHT WITH COMPETITORS
Bell Canada's first fiscal quarter report indicates the company, VANOC's major corporate sponsor, is still in a major battle with its competitors on all fronts, including the use of Internet technology by consumers, the lucrative enterprise market and consumer phone service. Bell said, however, it considerably improved its customer service wait times in the past few months.
RESOURCES
Bell's first quarter statement:
www.bce.ca/en/news/releases/corp/2007/05/02/74247.html
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 2, 2007
Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #2286
BC'S OLYMPIC SECRETARIAT OFFERS CONTRACT FOR DIRECT-MARKETING SUPPORT OF 2010 COMMERCE CENTRE
The BC Government's Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat is looking for companies willing to do an elaborate direct marketing campaign over the next two years in an effort to sign up businesses at the government's 2010 Commerce Centre.
The Secretariat is the department the government set up in the BC Economic Development ministry to be a one-stop shop for its various responsibilities and initiatives connected with hosting and leveraging the 2010 Winter Games. The 2010 Commerce Centre, a sister department within the ministry, is primarily a website designed to connect businesses with Olympics-related procurement and related programs, although it's not limited to the 2010 Games. Companies have until May 22 to apply to the Secretariat if they're interested in doing the work.
The Secretariat, set up a pilot project in 2005, run by Innovative Information Inc. of Vancouver, to run a similar program using Amacus, the firm's proprietary contact-management software. The Secretariat says about 4,000 e-mail addresses were generated by that process. The Secretariat would consider Innovative Information for the full program, but also wants to see if other firms can offer the same capability to get the e-mailing list of business people up to its goal of 15,000.
The essence of the campaign, which has optional one-year extensions to the contract, is to find out which business people are the best ones in a company to receive 2010-related procurement information by e-mail, call them up by phone and convince them to registered with 2010 Commerce Centre, helping them through the sign-up process as they do it, if necessary.
The campaign will also require the direct-marketing contractor to provide a call centre, which will keep government business hours of 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday, to answer any questions businesses might have about the process or getting procurement information, with the Secretariat requiring a maximum of two hours for call-backs.
But once signed up, 2010 Commerce Centre expects to expand its relationship with the business people from just providing e-mail notification of procurement opportunities, it will also market the "2010 Business Network", which is essentially an expansion of the information already received from notifications.
BACKGROUND
Here's what the "Outreach" direct-marketing program contractor will be asked to do:
Figure out the strategy for reaching the decision-makers in a BC business -- the Secretariat envisions this aspect as having to "Design, plan and execute an interactive enrollment campaign"
Create the message to BC businesses on why they should be involved in opportunities for 2010
Design promotional materials related to the concepts and get them distributed, which the Secretariat figures should integrate "multiple communication channels including web services, email, fax, and voice."
Drive the resulting traffic to the 2010 Commerce Centre website for sign up for its free services
Provide a customer-service centre to support the applications of all of these business people
Maintain communication with the businesses that have signed up
And reports -- the government loves reports -- "A 10-20 pages summary report on the project should be provided at the project's conclusion."
RESOURCES
John Cousineau
President,
Innovative Information Inc.
2775 W 42nd Ave
Vancouver, BC V6N 3G4
Phone: 604.264.7607
E-Mail: <jcousineau@innovativeinfo.com>
www.innovativeinfo.com
Amacus (Contact software published by Innovative Information Inc):
amacus.net
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 2, 2007