The Olympic Games

Go to work in a great restaurant, and you'll soon find its pleasures are forever lost in your complete and newfound awareness of all its moving pieces. Become a travel writer, and you’ll never again take a vacation, only search for leads in exotic places. Spend 50 - 60 hours a week working to create a brand-centric organization, and the ability to review a brand from a consumer perspective is, well, you get the picture. Welcome to my world.

I won’t be able to discuss a brand that makes me want to spend more or go out of my way to buy its product line. But I can talk about what I consider the most elegant and well-tended brand in the world, my favorite, The Olympic Games.

For each of us, those words evoke a series of pictures and sounds and emotions. How about you? What do you have filed under “The Olympic Games” in your subconscious? First, it’s probably a mental picture of the five rings whose colors are included in every flag in the world, and maybe the trumpet fanfare from the NBC telecasts.

But then, going deeper, what memories do those words spark in you? Is it being gripped by the heroic performance of an undertrained and overmatched athlete? Is it the button-popping pride when a fellow citizen—perhaps even someone you know—occupies the top of the podium and your country’s flag is raised? Is it the brutal humanity of the massacre in Munich? Is it the hopefulness of the closing ceremony and the proclamation that calls “the youth of the world to assemble four years from now to celebrate with us the Games of the next Olympiad”? Is it your own childhood dreams of future fame and success, the ability to conquer the world?

It’s something different to everyone, and curiously enough, at the same time a global, collective experience, one we share across geographies and genders and ethnicities. “The Olympic Games” spans the gamut of human condition and emotion, and touches people in powerful ways. I have a friend who calls the Olympics his church (and he only has to go for a few weeks alternating years!), and I find that is an apt metaphor, because there is something almost holy about the Games – there’s the ceremony, of course, but there’s also the baring of the human soul.

It’s a beautiful brand.

And I suppose, really, I do buy their product. I don’t miss a broadcast—multiply me times every household that owns a TV in the world, and the Olympic Committee has an irresistible proposition for its advertisers — unparalleled, penetrating access to the full spectrum of global demographics.

When I was younger, I thought that the Olympic Committee was run by a bunch of anal retentive control freaks. I mean, what kind of people would issue a Cease and Desist order to Hanna Barbera over their “Laff-a-Lympics” cartoon? And how many Olympic Peninsula businesses have been contacted by the Committee’s legal arm over having their geographic location, “Olympic” in their names? The Committee has been fierce in building a moat around their brand.

But now I appreciate the wisdom. The vigilance has been crucial to the development of the brand. Every unauthorized use of the name “Olympic” has the potential to significantly dilute the brand's strength, destroying the mystique the brand has attained. It would be impossible for "Olympic" to be a powerful representation of humanity at its best and at the same time be Yogi Bear throwing a javelin. At Boo Boo.