From the very beginning, the Beijing 2008 Licensing Program decreed that marketing research would be considered when assessing the suitability of both manufacturing and distribution licensees. No doubt this drove a significant amount of research work in the past eight years. There are now a number of market research studies in field that will assess the effectiveness of sponsorship amongst other things.

‘There are 63 official sponsors listed on the Beijing Olympics official website, nearly three times as many as Athens 2004,' notes Matthew Brosenne, international client services director at CSM Media Research. ‘Between them, they have invested more than RMB 20 billion. While their goals vary, they all want to know just how effective their sponsorship marketing is.'

TNS China has two media research joint ventures with CCTV - CSM Media Research, which specialises in TV ratings and CTR, which researches all types of media. Since 2006, CSM has been conducting 1,500 face-to-face interviews each quarter among respondents across 10 of China's cities. By the end of the research in October 2008, it will have done 16,500 interviews, over a total of 11 waves. The results are used in the China Olympic Sponsorship Benchmarking System.

CSM found that the best recall of Olympics-related advertising is focused on adverts around individual sports stars. While this is ranked third in terms of what people pay attention to, it ranks first in what people can remember.

Survey Sampling International (SSI) and the Survey & Statistics Institute (SSI) of Communication University of China (CUC) are conducting a communication effects research project.

The joint SSIs' project, The Media and the Olympic Games - An Empirical Study on Communication Effects, explores the relationship between media and the Olympic Games in three phases. The first phase was based on the media effects of China's bid for the 2008 Olympics at the turn of the
millennium and the second was based on the 2004 Athens Olympics, financially supported by CSM Media Research.

The Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press and CUC Press published the first two phases in 2004 and 2006.
Professor Huixin Ke, director of the Survey & Statistics Institute of CUC, is spearheading the project. She told Research News that because the Beijing Olympics effectively spans an eight-year period it is an ideal event for a tracking study.

Interestingly, she says early findings suggest there hasn't been a significant increase in awareness of companies that are sponsoring the Olympics.

At the beginning of 2007, only 10 per cent of respondents spontaneously named Coca Cola as an Olympics sponsor. By January this year, that figure had increased to 38 per cent. Coke also performed strongest in terms of promotional recall and media efficiency.

In both the telephone and online surveys, Coca Cola ranked first among foreign brand awareness although there were some differences - the telephone survey showed that Coca Cola, Lenovo, and Yili were named most frequently as 2008 Beijing Olympic sponsors while, amongst the online respondents (presumably more technologically savvy), Lenovo, Coca Cola, and China Mobile were named most frequently.

Surprisingly, Li Ning (a Chinese sportswear company) and Meng Niu (a Chinese dairy company) were most frequently mistaken as official sponsors. Professor Ke suggests that this is because they have aligned their marketing messages with the Oympics, even though they are not entitled to use the Beijing Olympics logo.

More than in any previous Olympics, the local companies continue to perform well in terms of marketing recognition. In CSM Media Research's Olympic Sponsorship Benchmarking study, they occupy 10 of the top 21 positions, attracting strong recognition and positive ‘local spirit' for their sponsorship investments.
Data from both the telephone and web surveys show that respondents have the highest recognition of Fuwa (2008 Summer Olympics mascots) and of the opening time of the Games; respondents with higher education levels have higher recognition of the Games.

Lifeng Liu, president of Ipsos in Greater China, describes the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as a ‘veritable feast for both sports fans and business giants'. Ipsos launched its 2008 Olympic Sponsorship Effectiveness Tracking Survey in March 2007. It is a syndicated monthly continuous tracker, aiming to help sponsors understand the effectiveness of their investment. This survey will last 16 waves until November 2008, covering 23 brands in eight categories, including Coca Cola, Samsung, Adidas, Bank of China, Hair, Yili, China Mobile and others.

Ipsos is also conducting another syndicated study on how the 2008 Olympic Games will impact Chinese citizens' daily lives.

‘The results show how the associated excitement will transpire in citizens' daily lives, and clearly there will be a very broad and deep level of change in routine consumer behaviour during the festive two weeks spanning three week-ends,' says Liu.

The SSIs' project will also explore the impact of the Beijing Olympics on foreigner's perceptions of China.
Professor Ke says the Chinese Government would like to understand what foreigners think of China. Face-to-face interviews will be conducted with foreign residents and tourists in China during the Games, supported by CSM Media Research. As well, surveys will be conducted online with those living outside the country, using Survey Sampling International's panel.

The current phase also aims to generate an understanding of the effectiveness of a variety of media by looking at Chinese consumers' sports awareness, media utilisation behaviours, Olympic awareness, and perception of Olympic sponsors. Phase three of the project is employing two methodologies: CATI by CSM Media Research; and online from Survey Sampling International.

The SSIs' research indicates that the five most popular Olympic sports among Chinese people are (in the following order): basketball, football, table tennis, diving and athletics.

‘As the Olympics draw near, respondents' sports awareness may increase to a certain extent,' explains Professor Ke, ‘and their sports consumption concept will be further strengthened'.

According to AGB Nielsen research reported in China Daily, table tennis, women's volleyball and the men's 110m hurdles competition are expected to be the most-watched events during the Beijing Games in Chinese households.

AGB Nielsen was awarded the contract to measure the size of TV audiences of the Beijing Olympic Games in 38 countries on five continents.

In addition to its international role, the agency will be measuring audiences in 10 provinces of China, covering a total of 660 million people. An article published in DRNO in early June noted that previously the firm - which began measuring TV audiences in China in 2005 - had been restricted to conducting work in a few urban areas of the country.

Linda Chang, managing director of AGB Nielsen in China, told China Daily that more than 18,000 sample families would collect data.

CSM Media Research will also measure TV ratings again this Olympics, as it has done for many years. Brosenne says 71.6 per cent of Chinese watched the 2000 Sydney Olympics. That grew to 79.1 per cent for the Athens Games in 2004. He says China's total TV population is now about 1.22 billion, double the population AGB measures.

Kerry Sunderland, managing editor, Research News

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