Sohu and them: the competition of "recessive marketing" of Olympic Games

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

Around the Olympic report, Sohu and Sina, Tencent, NetEase and other three major portals between the competition is really ups and downs, interlocking.

July 19, in order to unite against "Fox", the former rivals Sina, NetEase, Tencent for the first time together, the formation of the "Olympic Reporting alliance." Over the next two months, Tencent and Sina held successive press conferences announcing their respective Olympic strategies.

Only four days after Sina's Olympic report cards, as a formal response, Sohu also held a press conference to announce its own Olympic report strategic layout.

From July to September, around the Olympic coverage of the right to interview, advertising rights, and other issues, the Internet media into a confrontational "war of words." However, a small detail eventually exposes the current resource comparisons between the two sides.

The former two in the press conference on sports stars and media league-oriented guest lineup, at Sohu's Olympic strategy conference, including BOCOG executive vice Chairman Jiang, Bocog Market Development Minister bin, including the Olympic "heavyweight figures" are present.

Get Bocog on the spot again after the force, Sohu and Sina, NetEase, Teng Xun three between the Olympic Games interconnection reported controversy seems to be temporary paragraph.

But the most beneficial is actually on the sidelines of other companies, because such a vivid Olympic marketing course is a daughter difficult to change.

Official Resources vs Terminal layout

Content competition is the soul of media competition, and reporting resources is the core of competition in this industry. From this point of view, Sohu and the "Olympic Reporting alliance" dispute and all the industry oligarchy is the same.

But after the crown of the first Olympic Internet sponsor in history, Sohu's official resources of the Olympic Games seem to be three other difficulties.

No wonder November 7, 2005 when Sohu officially signed to become Beijing 2008 Olympic sponsors, looking at a large stack of treaty documents, Charles Zhang will sigh: "Sign get tired, but it is ten years the most happy thing." ”

As the official site of the Olympic Games, the website of Paralympics, the official website of the Olympic Torch relay, the main contractors and operators of the Chinese Olympic Committee, and the website of China Sports delegation, Sohu will naturally gather the advantages of network resources to form its own Olympic reporting core platform.

Sohu in the Internet media exclusive access to the Olympic official Information System (INFO2008) and the Olympic Games official news Service (ONS) system, to ensure that Sohu can directly in the first time to get the results of the game, pre-competition forecasts, after the game summary, press conference summary, athletes and coaches and other important information.

According to Sohu, this will be 60 seconds faster than the domestic Internet competitor. Sohu believes that in the network report against the clock, this content will attract global netizens and media to the surge of Sohu traffic.

During the tournament, based on the cooperation with the sports administration under the Chinese Olympic star, each athlete who won the gold medal of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will also visit Sohu's studio in the first time after the winning of the card, and carry out exclusive in-depth video interview.

"We have a dual identity because we are also sponsors of the Chinese sports delegation at the 2008 Olympics," he said. For the Olympic-related resources, Sohu is indeed an ' exclusive monopoly '. "Sohu Vice president Luming clearly said.

Although the official resources have been monopolized by rivals, as a response, in the "Olympic Reporting alliance" aspect, Sina, Tencent and NetEase choose to take advantage of force, indirect layout, relying on the terminal strategy from the civilian level to flank. And on the issue of media coverage, the Beijing Olympic Committee has made clear the more open welcome gesture.

In real-time data, Sina and BOCOG official data provider Infostrada to establish strategic cooperation, indirectly received a full set of real-time Olympic Games data products. In the report resources, Sina and Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, Reuters, the world's three major news agencies to reach strategic cooperation.

According to the relevant agreement signed by the three news agencies in September 2006 with the IOC and BOCOG, each news agency will have a 6~8 camera position on each track, and Sina is also indirectly seeking access to video resources.

With the advantages of QQ and instant messaging platform launched by Athens Olympic Games, Tencent insists on the way to the difference in the Olympic report. After all, Tencent has 250 million active accounts, covering more than 90% of China's internet population, and enhancing interactivity is the easiest strategy for Tencent to take.

Has the most domestic mailbox users NetEase also chose a similar strategy. "NetEase will announce the Olympic strategy in October, we will also focus on the use of interactive strategies." Fang Sanwen, Vice editor-in-chief of NetEase, said to reporters.

Staring at ads is not the only

The profits of the Olympic ads for Sohu have been clearly visible.

In 2007, Sohu's second-quarter earnings showed that advertising revenues, which were more relevant to the Olympics, reached $26.6 million in the two quarter, up 1.6 million U.S. dollars, up 38% from a year earlier, than the previous forecast.

Sohu has become more and more reliant on brand advertising revenue, the two quarter of its brand advertising revenue accounted for the proportion of its total income is as high as 86%, higher than Sina 17%.

Relying on brand advertising to show Sohu's share of non advertising revenue is inferior to Sina.

In 2008, the IOC planned to make the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games the "broadband Olympics" and "Wireless Olympics". If the wireless service can be effectively combined with the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it will further promote the growth of network marketing business. In this new battlefield, the advantages of both sides need to be reassessed.

However, like all the companies that have gained advantage, the first priority is "selves". In the face of high advertising returns, Sohu also expressed the desire to monopolize the Olympic Games in the Internet advertising market vision.

But bin in a recent media statement that Beijing Olympic Games partners and sponsors are allowed to appear on other sites outside Sohu with Olympic logo Olympic marketing ads, BOCOG is still under discussion.

Beijing Lawyers Association Olympic and Stylistic Legal Affairs of the Professional Committee, deputy director of Beijing Xin Tai Yang law firm Sun Xiaoyang Analysis said, only BOCOG and Sohu in the Sponsorship contract agreement, and BOCOG and other partners and sponsors in the sponsorship contract to give the correct answer to solve the problem.

In the sponsorship contract between BOCOG and Sohu, if the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Partners and sponsors, such as the use of a combination of logo to do Olympic-related ads only to Sohu site (in addition to 12 Olympic Global Partners), then Sohu will enjoy this exclusive right. And the content will become an obligation of partners and sponsors.

If BOCOG and its partners and sponsors are signing the sponsorship contract, for the use of the Internet using a combination of logo to do the Olympic ads related to the uniqueness of the site to make the relevant agreement, or signed open terms (the contract was not yet foreseen which site), then the relevant partners and sponsors should comply with the relevant agreement If BOCOG has no agreement with other partners and sponsors to sign the relevant sponsorship, the BOCOG and other partners and sponsors should deal with the issue properly, and they can agree on this through consultation or otherwise.

The final decision remains to be further expressed by the Beijing Olympic Committee, as there will be strict confidentiality provisions in the sponsorship contracts signed between BOCOG and Sohu and BOCOG and other partners and sponsors.

The dispute of recessive marketing

The battle between Sohu and the Olympic Reporting Alliance is just a battleground in the Olympic marketing battle.

But the dispute also suggests that corporate understanding of Olympic marketing is not very clear. In response to Sohu and Sina, the Olympic sponsors have different interpretations of the rights, bin in an interview stressed that all the Olympic logo related to all marketing activities known as the Olympic Games marketing, all want to carry out the Olympic marketing enterprises must be the Beijing Olympic Games sponsors, Beijing Olympics group will protect Sohu's Olympic marketing rights.

After the "Olympic Reporting alliance" constantly touch on the bottom line of Olympic marketing, Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee to prevent the future of the hidden marketing work raised a wake-up call.

Preventing the recessive marketing of the Olympic Games has been one of the Olympic Committee's mission. Because the recessive marketing degrades the real Olympic market to develop the legal rights and the sponsorship value of the sponsoring enterprise, and has brought the huge unfairness to the sponsoring enterprise. And it seriously interferes with the Olympic market development plan, also poses a potential threat to the future Olympic market development plan.

But the problem is that defining implicit marketing is inherently difficult.

"We do not advocate the use of the concept of recessive marketing, it is not a clear definition of the concept of our laws, and its scale is relatively large." Liu June, vice minister of market development of BOCOG, said to reporters.

Sun Xiaoyang Analysis said: "Recessive marketing" is only BOCOG and the IOC in the relevant agreement document of a work concept. The experience of market development and brand protection of successive Olympic Games shows that non-Olympic sponsors try to establish false or unauthorized links with the Olympic Games, non-Olympic sponsorship companies violate the laws governing the protection of Olympic intellectual property rights, and the legitimate market development activities of non-Olympic sponsorship companies that deliberately interfere with Olympic sponsorship are typical recessive marketing.

In her view, the main difficulty in defining recessive marketing behavior may be whether it can accurately identify, identify certain individuals, enterprises, some of the actions, activities and so on to host the Olympic Games enthusiastic support or intended to "ride the Olympic Games."

Specifically, the use of the Olympic emblem for commercial purposes (including potential commercial purposes) has been clearly stipulated in the Olympic Emblem Protection Ordinance, which began on April 1, 2002. But for others to play "edge" of the recessive marketing behavior, BOCOG needs to moderate.

"From the point of view of the BOCOG, we have a principle which can be used in layman's terms, that is, ' not legislate without legislation ', and more emphasis on interpreting, amending and perfecting existing legislation." "Our basic attitude is that the awareness of the Olympics ' recessive marketing ' severity and handling measures is limited," Li Yanjun, director of the Bureau of Legal Affairs of BOCOG, said in a media interview earlier. ”

Li Yanjun's explanation is that the "necessity" means that marketing is not misleading, can not destroy the Olympic organizing atmosphere, can not undermine the legitimate and legal rights of the sponsors. and "Limited" means that the recessive marketing can not be flooded, some enterprises ' lawful behavior or other nature of the illegal behavior classified as recessive marketing.

"China has a relatively complete administrative law enforcement team, we will be through the business Administration and other departments of cooperation to inhibit the emergence of recessive marketing." Liu June said.

Sohu and the "Olympic Reporting Alliance," the controversy is a focus, Sohu announced prematurely "according to regulations, any Olympic Games five ring mark of Internet advertising, can only be published in Sohu."

and Li Yanjun earlier in the media interview pointed out that BOCOG is not opposed to, and has no right to limit the sponsorship of the use of such statements to defend their rights. But caution is advised. Because from a legal standpoint, such a statement is akin to a "punishment" of honour. Making such a statement might be in the right hand of a competitor, but rather a "covert marketing" strong momentum.

Catch the Olympic Express

In fact, for Olympic partners and sponsors, and the majority of non-Olympic enterprises, in the interconnection of the Olympic Games, the Olympic marketing has a new understanding.

"Olympic marketing power is not a legal concept, there is no precise definition." I personally understand that it is a market concept, which is the right of Olympic sponsors to use the Olympic resources to carry out relevant market development and related corporate propaganda, and therefore to obtain commercial benefits and commercial returns. This kind of marketing should include the behavior such as advertisement, market propaganda. Sun Xiaoyang said, "Non-Olympic sponsorship companies also have a full opportunity to use the Olympic resources legitimately to market development and marketing." The Olympic Games are not only Olympic sponsors, but also the Olympic Games for all enterprises. ”

"When companies become Olympic sponsors, they just enter the Olympic threshold or just buy a ticket," he said. Liu June told reporters, "but there is still a lot of content need more input, need to get more support from BOCOG."

Liu June explained that when he became an Olympic partner or a sponsor, he would receive a return on his ticket, as well as a variety of communications training. The Beijing Olympics created a partner club in the midst of the process, allowing partners and sponsoring companies to find opportunities that had not previously been available on the platform. These are valuable Olympic resources.

There are also smart cases in domestic companies. China Merchants Bank, a non-Olympic sponsor, used a partnership with Visa to launch a "China Merchants Bank visa Olympic credit card" card, entitled "2008 and One World", to get a slice of the exclusive payment card in the visa games.

"Non-Olympic sponsorship companies also have a full opportunity to use the Olympic resources legitimately to market development and marketing." The Olympic Games are not only Olympic sponsors, but also the Olympic Games for all enterprises. Sun Xiaoyang said, "Non-Olympic sponsorship enterprises can actively participate in the Beijing Olympic Committee's commercial procurement, to carry out the relevant bidding activities, and the Olympic sponsors can also carry out various forms of business cooperation." "(Responsible editor: ADMIN02)