Exclusive Blog Article: The 2012 Olympic Branding

The new contemporary-looking branding for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics (see below for image) was revealed today in a ceremony at the Roundhouse arts centre in Camden, London. The event’s logo was unveiled by 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe and a team of sportspeople and celebrities including Dame Kelly Holmes, singer Jamelia, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and tennis player Andy Murray.

“This brand will be the heartbeat of our games,” said Coe, going on to explain that the brand was deliberately designed by agency Wolff Olins not to be “static” but “always moving”. He claimed that this was in keeping with the way that young people now consume media, through online materials and social networks.

He also mentioned that the logo would stay the same for both the Olympics and Paralympics, the first time this has occurred, in recognition that the events hold the same standing. Videos showed comments from outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, London’s mayor Ken Livingstone and a number of other political and sporting figures. Blair said that the Olympics were a chance for people to “reflect and reconsider” while Livingstone commented on the cultural legacy of the event: “What for me is inspirational about the games is the chance to demonstrate to the whole world every race and religion and nationality living in one city, incredibly well, getting on well – dynamic interchange – and that’s the model for the future of humanity.”

Coe was anxious to stress that the branding exercise was not just about a logo. He said: “It reflects London – it is not corporate but contemporary.” He added that the most important part of the branding exercise was the part behind the marketing materials – the values about inspiring people and achieving dreams.

Sportswoman Denise Lewis then spoke about her own take on the 2012 brand. She said: “The challenge for the brand is to capture inspiration – it’s got to shout passion and energy. It’s not a badge or a stamp but a state of mind; it’s an attitude.”

Coe called for people to join in a ‘pledge campaign’, to be launched this summer, which will encourage people to take the inspiration theme of the Olympic Games and address some of their own challenges in life.

After the main announcements, the celebrities involved put forward their own pledge, which ranged from “teach my two daughters to swim” (Jamelia) to “be a Londoner” from Jose Mourinho. More on everything to do with the Olympics and Paralympics can be found on the 2012 official Work in Progress blog.

London 2012 Branding: The Facts

• The logo was designed by brand agency Wolff Olins.
• The logo can appear in four different colours -pink, blue, green and orange – designed to be a ‘twist’ on those already present in the Olympic rings logo.
• There is a branding palette that backs up the logo with specific lines, colours and shapes.
• The logo will be “distinct and different” from previous Olympic logos because the games themselves are claimed to be distinct and different, building only facilities that can be used after the events by the communities in those areas.
• The logo is “dynamic, modern and flexible” because it is claimed that brand-savvy young people no longer relate to static logos in their technology-fuelled worlds.
• The brand is hoping to help the organisers of London 2012 get commercial backing and raise the £2bn needed to stage the games.
• If you are a Brand Strategy subscriber, you can read our exclusive article with Keith Mills, chief executive of the 2012 bid from 2005: click here to find out the marketing strategy behind the original bid.

Brand Strategy Comment

Two years ago, when London won the right to hold the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, it was widely said to be down to the city’s multicultural heritage. A group of schoolchilden accompanied Seb Coe and his cohorts on the bid trip to Singapore to demonstrate that a games taking place in London was a games that would reach the population of the world.

But it could be argued that it was not really anything about London itself that grasped the games from the hands of Paris (the other lead contender). The London 2012 bid was a carefully-executed masterclass in effective marketing. Everything about the bid was branded, strategised and planned down to the smallest detail. The team behind the bid saw the unique selling point of London (its multiculturalism) and in a climate where people are anxious for different races and religions to live in harmony, sold this aspect of the city to the world.

Back in 2005, Brand Strategy interviewed Keith Mills, chief executive of the London 2012 bid and the man who set up Air Miles and Nectar. The magazine has also poken on many occasions to the man who was marketing director for the bid, David Magliano, formerly of Easyjet and Go. Neither of these men are known for their careers in sport – rather, they are both known as sophisticated marketing experts. Every step of the London 2012 bid was handled with its brand marketing at the forefront of the organisers’ minds.

The event at the Roundhouse was no less carefully orchestrated. It had everything: a new logo, videos of ‘ordinary people’, Seb Coe speaking passionately of a brand being more than just this logo, celebrities to add a touch of glamour, former sportspeople for authentity and representatives of the children who went to Singapore two years ago to show that the concepts of community are still strong for the 2012 team.

The logo itself resembles graffiti with its cartoonish-style text. It is certainly a move away from the more traditional logos used by the team so far. It appears to be targeting one social demographic: youth. It looks like the kind of doodle that you might find on the cover of a school textbook. Coe said this was designed to be ‘contemporary’ rather than ‘corporate’; it is the human face of the games as opposed to the organising body’s look and feel.

Brand Strategy was keen to ask Wolff Olins more about why this brand was chosen, what thought went into it and what other designs were discarded, but the 2012 team at the event was not so keen. We were told firmly by the event organisers that the branding agency that designed the logo was not allowed to be quoted in this article. So unfortunately, we cannot tell you more about the mechanics behind the brand choice at this point in time.

It is interesting, however, when you compare it with some of the previous logos – Barcelona had a logo with a Gaudi-esque ‘figure’ above it, a clear nod to the city’s heritage. Athens 2004 featured a laurel head wreath, the traditional symbol of the Olympic victory – fitting given that Greece is the original home of the games.

Next to these, the 2012 symbol looks chunky and less obvious as an Olympic logo – also, it is unclear how this design sums up London. Perhaps it is not intended to (keeping to the theme of a ‘universal’ games for the whole world) but it certainly makes a departure from previous years. It is less about London and more about the date.

There will be people who love the new logo for embracing the youth market and thinking about how it will look in interactive media as well as on a sheet of paper. But there will be those who see it as too gimmicky. Despite Coe’s promise that it will evolve over time, it is very much a bold statement that seems to offer little room for change and may be seen as too ‘yoof’, offering too little gravitas for such a historic event.

Let us know your views – does it row your Olympic boat? Or is it more an own-goal?

UPDATE: If you want to see some consumers’ efforts at the logo, click here.