That’s a foul! Olympic campaigns that courted controversies

In the run-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics last week, international sportswear brand Adidas got itself in hot waters with a controversial marketing campaign. When the brand recently launched its retro-inspired shoes called SL 72, their campaign alluded to the 1972 Munich Olympics and featured American supermodel Bella Hadid. 

During the 1972 games, eleven members of the Israeli delegation were killed by Palestinian terrorists. Hadid, being of Palestinian descent, has often been vocally critical of Israel’s “occupation” of Palestine amid the ongoing war which started on October 7. The choice of the model did not go down too well with the state of Israel, who took to the microblogging platform X, saying that Hadid had been “spreading antisemitism.” 

.@Adidas recently launched a new campaign for their shoes to highlight the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Eleven Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the Munich Olympics.

Guess who the face of their campaign is? Bella Hadid, a half-Palestinian model who has a history… pic.twitter.com/IgdGq2OLmd

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) July 18, 2024

In the aftermath of the backlash, the brand first decided to pull back the ad and offered an apology to those whose sentiments were hurt. Then, there were reports about Bella Hadid planning to sue Adidas as she claimed she did not know about the content herself. It ended with Adidas issuing an apology to Hadid as well. 

Olympics related marketing campaigns going wrong is not new. There have been several such campaigns that ended up creating controversy and raising a stink.

Nike 2024 Paris

Let’s start with another campaign from this year. Nike’s new ad with the tagline ‘Winning Isn’t For Everyone’ is a star-studded video showing athletes of various nationalities and ethnicities engaged in all sorts of sporting activities. At the 6-second mark in the 100-second video, a Chinese athlete is shown licking her table tennis paddle before taking a shot. This particular shot garnered a whole bunch of negative reviews on the Chinese social media, with people calling the shot disgusting and disrespectful and even accusing the ad of having racial undertones. The ad had resulted in a boycott call against the sportswear giant in China.  

Nike: 1996 Atlanta 

Speaking of Nike, the brand is known as the master of ambush marketing during the Olympics. In 1984, its TV commercials that ran with the theme song, “I Love LA” made people think it was the official sportswear brand for the event when it was Converse. In 1992 Barcelona games, despite Reebok being an official sponsor, Nike gathered eyeballs for sponsoring the gold-winning basketball team of United States of America, especially when some of the players hid the Reebok logos on their uniforms. In the next Olympics in Atlanta, Michael Johnson’s gold Nike shoes that have now gained a cult following were an attempt to take the attention away from the official sponsor Reebok. This year also saw them splashing their banners all over Atlanta outside the Olympic village. The brand was largely responsible for the International Olympics Committee (IOC) coming up with stricter laws about advertising around the event. This year, they came up with a much discussed rule 40 that prohibits athletes from using the several activities that could result in commercial gains.

Puma: Atlanta 1996 

Reebok got a double whammy of sorts in the Atlanta Games as another competitor Puma also did something sneaky. During a press conference before the actual race, the German company convinced British sprinter Linford Christie to wear lenses with the panther logo. Earlier, Reebok had asked Christie to hide his Puma tattoo while attending the Olympic games. The move resulted in the IOC making another addition to the list of accessories that athletes are banned from wearing during the games. 

Reebok: Barcelona 1992 

Reebok faced one of the biggest marketing debacles in the history of Olympics in the run-up to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. A long-winded campaign titled ‘Dan and Dave’ pitched two decathletes Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson against each other in a series of commercials. Nudging the American people to pick one of the two men was a better contender, the campaign ensured to tell them the ‘competition’ would be settled in Barcelona soon. Despite being a very successful athlete and a crowd favorite, Dan did not qualify for the main event. Reebok, then, aired the final ad showing Dan supporting Dave who managed to get a bronze medal at the Games. Dan ended up winning the gold in the next Olympics in 1996.

Coca-Cola and others: Beijing 2022 and 2008 

Even as the Chinese capital readied itself to host the Winter Olympics in 2022, many countries and brands chose to distance themselves from the event on account of the human rights violations in the country. Coca-Cola, which has been among the top sponsors of the games since 1928, decided to stick it out despite the boycott calls and widespread criticism. The flak drawn this time around was much greater than that in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 since the event was held after the COVID pandemic. The company chose to keep a low profile with no campaigns in either years released in the international market, but jacked up its marketing activities in China. 

 Toyota: Tokyo 2020 

The Tokyo 2020 games, which were held in 2021 due to the pandemic, came at a time when the world had not completely healed. Several of their Japanese sponsors, including Toyota, decided to not air any commercials during the event in Japan. The decision was taken because there was a strong sense of dissatisfaction among the Japanese who were afraid it could turn into a super spreader event. The auto brand has been in the roster of Olympic sponsors since 2015, but has put out feelers that it will no longer be sponsoring the event after 2024. They were reported telling news agency Kyodo that the company was not happy with the way money was being used by the IOC feeling it was “not used effectively to support athletes and promote sports.” 

The Olympic Games may be known for celebrating the endurance of mankind. The event has not only given brands an avenue to market themselves over the years but has set high standards of athletic achievements. However, the increasing commercialisation of the event has started drawing flak lately, as shown by Toyota’s decision to step down as a sponsor. Let’s hope the sportsman spirit at display during the games continues to make more news than sponsorships and controversies.