Scottie Scheffler tears up on the podium after winning the gold medal. Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images
When I was 20, I did not leave college for the summer without a homework assignment that made me … well… kind of mad.
I left John Pauley’s office (my rhetoric professor) in a bit of a huff. He told me to return in August with a research topic – something I could study deeply through a rhetorical lens.
He said there were no rules, no guardrails. I could choose anything.
Which I hated. I like to know what’s expected, what the rules of are, and there weren’t any. Maybe you’re like me.
Watching everyone’s fervor for the 2024 Olympics on social media has been noticeable the last 2 weeks. So many people here have drawn great analogies to leadership, grit, mindset, all of it.
The Olympics are a universal place of joy and good will. They stands for everything the world could be if we all just got along.
Back to the assignment I’d been given that summer.
A total surprise to me, I ended up studying 12 TV advertisements that ran during the Olympic Games as my research topic.
I studied “the cheaters”, you might say. The Olympic Sponsor wanna-be’s.
I studied them in molecular detail so I could get to the bottom of it.
Why did they cheat?
Which Brands were “The Haves,” which were “Have Nots?”
In 1996, the world was about to cast its eyes on Atlanta Georgia for the Summer Olympics.
One day that July, I was watching Swimming and Diving.
A Wendy’s commercial came on.
It made me wrinkle my brow.
Another aired a few minutes later. I made the same face.
Something was weird. Off. Not right.
How Did the TV Ads Differ?
✅ “The Haves”|McDonald’s, Nike, and Coke
Commercials from McDonald’s, Nike, and Coke were gloriously produced. As Official Sponsors they:
Proudly displayed the 5 Olympic Rings in full color
The seal that read, “Official Sponsor of the 1996 Olympic Games”
Some of the Olympic athletes themselves, along with flags from other countries.
⚠️ “The Have Nots”|Wendy’s, Foot Locker, and Ford Focus
I saw the commercials from Wendy’s, Foot Locker, and Ford Focus – they were NOT Official Sponsors. But they clearly tried to convey the Olympic spirit and associate with it.
That was the key, right there. They pretended to be Official Sponsors by…
Dressing athletes in sports gear and showing them do sports like pole vaulting or polo.
Putting a plain podium with 3 steps on the final scene of the commercial to denote “Olympics”
Play music with horns, show flags that look like the flags of countries but aren’t.
You might say they cheated… or they were curiously clever. They wanted viewers to associate them with the Olympics. And for obvious reasons.
What’s the Point?
The point is association. All big brands want a piece of the Olympic Brand “pie.”
Non-sponsors – those who did not pay the International Olympic Committee their due – knew their own brand image could grow if they merely appeared to be a sponsor.
Thing is, it may have actually reduced the credibility of non-sponsors who were to be found out by viewers and consumers.
Can’t really blame them though. Look at this photo of Scottie Scheffler. The emotional highs (and lows) of these 12 days are part of a tradition that is centuries old.
Who wouldn’t want to be part of the Olympic brand?
A Final Bonus Point.
1) In my research project, I found a name for the “faking it” part – it’s a rhetorical device called “the enthymeme.” “The enthymeme is the name of a syllogistic argument that is incompletely stated.”
Meaning, viewers of the ad devised “Olympic Games” from watching the ad because of the symbols observed (sport type, flags, podium), when the advertisers themselves never actually said it.
The bullets above in the “Have Nots” column – that’s the use of the Enthymeme.
