source from：FT
August 9, 2016 7:56 am
Olympics give Rio a chance to rebrand
Joe Leahy and Murad Ahmed in Rio de Janeiro


Fireworks explode over the Maracana stadium in Rio during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games
It may be one of the most stunning cities to host the Olympic Games, but Rio did not always offer an attractive backdrop for sponsors looking to associate their brand with one of the world’s biggest sporting events.
In April, Amnesty International, the human rights group, painted Rio’s favelas or slums as a killing field for young children, with innocents being hit by stray bullets as police undertook a “clean-up” of the city’s drug gangs ahead of the games.
International media coverage also portrayed a capital in which body parts were washing up on beaches, mosquitoes laden with the Zika virus were swarming the Olympic arenas and so much untreated sewage was flowing into the water venues that a rowing boat could not readily penetrate the sludge.
Yet the past experience of other cities holding the games teaches Rio’s city government and the main corporate sponsors, which include Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and Samsung, that the storm is worth weathering, according to marketing experts. History suggests that when the games start, the media switches its attention to the sport. The Olympics then suddenly reveals its enormous marketing power as a platform for a city to rebrand itself and for corporate sponsors to reach a global audience.
“[In London], I remember thinking how the atmosphere instantly changed and I mean instantly, it was like somebody switching on a light,” said Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the world’s largest advertising group, of how the mood quickly lifted at the start of the 2012 games.
While it is still early days for South America’s first Olympics, five days into the 17-day contest there are signs history is repeating itself. After a well-executed opening ceremony in the Maracanã stadium, the home of football, the world is focused on the sport and Brazilians are beginning to take pride in the event.
“We really needed this,” said a public relations executive at one of Brazil’s largest companies who works in Rio, pointing to the country’s deep recession and political crisis with leftwing President Dilma Rousseff facing impeachment. “Everyone is a bit down at the moment but the opening ceremony gave us something to smile about.”
The brand value of the games is shown by the International Olympic Committee’s enormous revenues from staging the summer and winter editions of the event.
A report by the research body Sportcal estimated that the IOC made 8bn dollars in revenues in the four-year cycle encompassing the 2010 Vancouver winter games and the 2012 London summer games. It suggested around 3.91bn dollars was made from media rights.

Police patrol a Rio favela
The American TV Network NBC, which has exclusive broadcast rights in the US, has said it is on track to exceed selling 1bn dollarsworth of advertising across its channels during the Rio games.
Its parent company Comcast has paid 4.4bn dollars to acquire the broadcast rights for the games to 2020, and a further 7.75bn dollars for rights until 2032. Last year, Discovery Communications, the owner of Eurosport, paid