WOW !!! THE RESULTS ARE IN …

I recently saw the results of market research done after the Olympics in Beijing .

Brands like Adidas paid $80 million to $100 million to be the official sponsor of the games. Global sponsors Coca-Cola & McDonald's--spent a combined $850 million to sponsor the Olympics. All with the desire of selling to China's emerging 250 million-strong middle class as a way to build brand awareness with Chinese consumers to increase sales.

The results of the research were discouraging for those companies. Virtually 80% of the Chinese consumers that were surveyed claimed "They did not care" who the official sponsors were and the vast majority "did not consider official Olympic sponsorship" when buying a product.

The findings suggested that consumers increasingly buy the products and services they consider to be of the highest value and the brands that fit their image of the ideal life rather than by which company is the official sponsor.

The vast majority of consumers interviewed failed to identify the official sponsor when given several choices in nearly all product sponsorship categories. Consumers often named as sponsor the brand they considered "best" in the marketplace according to their own preferences. In the sportswear category, people usually responded correctly if they could recall a specific advertisement. But if respondents had not seen or could not remember the ad, they almost all believed that Nike was the official sponsor not Adidas.

So what does that mean?

Stop advertising, sponsorships, start doing nothing but late night cable ads ?

No… !

Consumers buy what they perceive as a value. Create a product that is a value not a product of convenience to produce. Ask the question “ Would I buy this product ? And why? “ Create ten reasons, then use those to promote your products or to improve a less valued product.

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