Lenovo Utilizes Olympic Bloggers
July 30, 2008 – 11:27 am by Kyle Welter
The Olympics never fail to be an exciting time for not only the world of sports, but also for the world of marketing and branding. The Olympic athlete is viewed as patriotic, heroic and even superhuman, so when brands get the chance to be associated with these people, they take it. Lenovo is taking advantage of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by sponsoring 100 athletes and providing them with a laptop, video camera and a blogging platform in order to document their experience and give the world an insider’s view. The blogging platform was created with the help of Google and the blogs can be found on the laptop manufacturer’s website. Lenovo has asked the athletes to include a “Lenovo 2008 Olympics Blogger” badge on their personal website, but has stated that they are letting the Olympians write whatever they would like to and are staying away from “telling them what to write” quotes David Churbuck, vp of global Web marketing at Lenovo.
The majority of Olympians targeted were those of rarely covered sports including field hockey and modern pentathlon. In addition to the blogging effort, Lenovo has rolled out a Facebook application which allows users to strongly align with the country in which they support. So far, over 100,000 applications have been downloaded and it is interesting to see an application branded by a technology product have such early success.
Check out the Athlete’s Blogs:
Kamilla Juhl: Danish Badminton Player
Rajyavardhan Rathore: Indian Shooter
