A Great Sports PR Campaign From An Unlikely Source

The two weeks every two years that the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, respectively, takes place is an exciting time for the world of sports. Along with the world-class athletic competition we generally don’t get to see otherwise there are always a couple of unknown athletes who breakthrough and become well-known media stars (Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, Hannah Teter, Apolo Ohno, Angela Ruggiero to name a few).

But there’s also always an extra buzz in the sports public relations industry because the Olympics offer a very unique opportunity to generate major publicity and brand recognition for your client or product. Unlike the other major sporting events (like the Super Bowl), the Olympics are a two-week international event that offers an extended time frame to develop and execute a campaign that reaches a world-wide audience.

Usually we see some smart and creative PR minds leverage the Olympics to garner strong media coverage and brand recognition for a client or product. A strong PR campaign can align your client with all that’s special and wonderful about the Olympic Games (Coca-Cola, Visa, Samsung, Proctor & Gamble, etc.).

But for the XXI Olympic Winter Games, that kicked off this past Friday in Vancouver, British Columbia, a brilliant PR effort was launched a few months prior to the start that’s generating unprecedented media coverage for both the product and the sport.

They’re both leveraging each other!

The Colbert Report is a satirical late night television program hosted by pseudo political commentator Stephen Colbert that’s aired on Comedy Central.

During a show in earlier November, Colbert, along with speedskating legend Dan Jansen, current U.S. Speedskater Katherine Reutter and U.S. Speedskating executive director Robert Crowley, announced that “Colbert Nation” is stepping in as primary sponsor for U.S. Speedskating.

The team’s previous sponsor, the Dutch bank DSB, went bankrupt and could not contribute the necessary $300,000 to finance the team for the 2010 Winter Games.

So Colbert promised to raise the money via an online pledge drive (click here) for his viewers and fans. The drive has already reached the $300,000 goal and counting.

Since the historic announcement The Colbert Report and U.S. Speedskating has been all over the media including the cover story for the Dec. 21 issue of Sports Illustrated (the cover appearance alone is worth millions of dollars in PR exposure).

The PR campaign has also, inadvertently, brought American speedskater Shani Davis into the public eye when the introverted star told the media he thought Colbert was “a jerk”.

Colbert turned the comment around and had some fun with it, challenging Davis to a race.

Davis wised up and got on board by racing Colbert at the team’s Olympic training site in Salt Lake City for a hilarious segment that aired on a show in December. The race and subsequent show segment earned Davis and U.S. Speedskating additional PR exposure. Without Colbert, Davis would never of had that chance (and vise versa).

Colbert has even parlayed the partnership with U.S. Speedskating into a media credential for himself. Dick Ebersol, NBC Universal’s Chairman of Sports and Olympics, went on Colbert’s show and offered him the elusive media accesses to the Games with an on-air invitation. So now Colbert can stretch his media and PR coverage for his show and the U.S. Speedskating team even further.

The Colbert-U.S. Speedskating PR effort should serve as a terrific example and reminder to sports PR executives (including myself) that there are limitless avenues to utilize when developing a campaign.

When you think about how brilliant the Colbert-U.S. Speedskating campaign is you can’t help but wonder why nobody has done something like it before.

Then again, you could say that about most great ideas.