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Chinese businesses look to Olympic boost
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-04 23:41 BEIJING - The advertising campaign is getting red hot, as Beijing enters the final four days of sprint toward the Olympic Games opening.
Refusing to be overshadowed by international big names of Adidas and Coca Cola, Chinese sponsors of the Games are seeking to draw public attention from buses, subway trains, neon lights and right there in the Olympic venues. The Lenovo Internet lounge in the Main Press Center of the Beijing Olympic Games opens 15 hours a day and its 24 big-screen, state-of-the-art computers are almost always occupied. "Several hundred people drop in daily, and most of them are foreign reporters," said He Weifeng, a manager of the Lenovo service center. Lenovo, the only Chinese company among the International Olympic Committee's 12 top-tier sponsors, is supplying 30,000 servers, personal computers and other equipment for the Beijing Games. The Beijing-based company has recently made its way into Fortune's top 500. "It's worthwhile after all to be a top-tier sponsor," said the group's board chairman Yang Yuanqing at the inauguration of Lenovo's lounge at the Olympic Park near the athletes' village in northern Beijing. Lenovo was only a local firm with about US$3 billion of turnover when it clinched the sponsorship deal with the IOC four years ago. "Some said we were taking too much risk, but we couldn't afford to lose this once-in-a-century opportunity," said Yang. His company acquired IBM Corp's PC unit in 2005 and is now hoping its link to the Olympics will boost its efforts to become a global brand name. "It's a hard-won opportunity for Chinese businesses to expand their international market through their links to the Games," said Yuan Bin, an official in charge of market development with the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games. From Haier's air-conditioners, fridges and washing machines in the Olympic media village to Tsingtao beer and Yili diary products, Chinese companies are taking the chance to bolster their brands and expand further on the world market. All are trying to follow Sony and Samsung to Olympic fame. |
