As we enter the home stretch to Tokyo, it’s only right that excitement should start to build. The Olympic PR machine is already shifting through the gears, starting with teasers and building towards the torch relay.
And while we can be certain next summer will bring a wonderful fortnight of slick slow-motion, vivid 8K footage, immersive 3D and more, the battle for fans’ attention on their second screens is where innovation will matter most. Social media is where the real action will need to be.
At stake is no less than the success of IOC president Bach’s much-touted Agenda 2020. At the core of that plan was an acknowledgement of the clear need for the IOC to radically improve its appeal to young people. And traditional TV is not the place to go looking for youth.
The IOC appears to have some appreciation for the scale of the challenge. It has restructured its efforts accordingly. A new director-level position for all things digital has been created and filled. The Tokyo 2020 website and social media feeds will now be managed by the IOC, and not the organising committee.
In taking full responsibility for the production and distribution of digital content, the IOC has finally put digital output on a par with broadcast. Many years have passed since the IOC took control of its core TV product and it was baffling that the same approach had not been applied to digital.
Like most young people however, the Olympians themselves have shown no prevarication in committing to social. In an era when it is understood that Lebron can earn $140, 000 from a single tweet, it pays for athletes to understand themselves as online brands too.
And whereas the IOC’s Rule 40 restrictions on Games-time sponsor acknowledgement had long blocked earning potential, the flexibility first won by Germany’s Die Atleten and since extended to others, now means athletes are going to be taking their social media output even more seriously. Less stringent social media guidelines, that set out what content athletes can capture and where, will afford the athletes further opportunities.
This is vitally important because brands, broadcasters, international federations and the IOC itself must understand that athletes themselves are the ones who will tell the story of Tokyo 2020 on social. But this understanding requires a significant shift in mindset. Traditionally, amateur Olympians were meant only to compete. It was the job of others to tell their stories.
The Olympic Charter even goes so far as to expressly prohibit athletes from reporting on the Games: “Under no circumstances, throughout the duration of the Olympic Games, may any athlete…act as a journalist or in any other media capacity.” The mindset behind this provision–a holdover from the long-gone days of amateurism–still widely prevails.
But allowing and even empowering the athletes to tell the stories of their competitions and experiences makes sense for so many reasons. It’s the athletes that have the followings: Simone Biles alone has 50 per cent more followers on Instagram than the whole Olympics account. It’s the athletes that have the engagement: athlete posts score up to ten-times higher in terms of interactions than those posted by teams, leagues or brands. And it’s the athletes that wield the considerable power of third-party endorsement. After all, what are the Olympics without the passion expressed by Olympians?
Already, there are promising signs that some in the Olympic Movement really get it. Team USA and NBC joined forces just last month (November) to take more than a hundred of the country’s top Olympians to Los Angeles to generate content for social media. There, they were met with top photographers, make-up artists, stylists, choreographers and multiple studio backdrops and lighting setups. And lots of puppies. Instantly, the athletes began sharing both behind-the-scenes and polished content (with the authenticity of the former boosting the latter).
Of course, viral hits are always just as likely to happen by accident as by design. The 15 million views for the shaky shooting and frankly awful dancing of the US swim team covering “Call Me Maybe”, prior to London 2012, was ample evidence of that. But some things are just too important to be left to chance. The renewal of the Olympic audience is just such a thing.