Hazel Friedman
In the days leading up to the results of the Olympics bid, Cape Town must have felt pretty much like America did during the 1945 presidential race between Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey. But unlike the Chicago Tribune that published the erroneous headline poster DEWEY WINS, before the final vote was counted, Cape Town’s advertising agencies were more circumspect in their predictions.
For example TBWA Hunt Lascaris – the agency spearheading the advertising campaign for the Olympics bid – came up with two options. If Athens won, the advert would include two broken plates in place of the two zeros of the 2004 . And if Rome capped it, the site of their most street-wise advertising campaign – an unfinished highway in the heart of the city – would be adorned with the sign saying NOT ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME.
And in the context of the negative publicity attacking the bid as being inappropriate given South Africa’s pressing developmental needs, before being labelled too Cape-oriented and not African enough, TBWA Hunt Lascaris’s extensive campaign has served as something of a bridge builder.
It has helped unite 75% of Capetonians in favour of the bid. In addition, the campaign earned the agency a medal at the New York Festival, special mentions at the Loeries and an Ad of the Month Award.
“The Bid Committee was faced with the tough task of advertising the bid in a cost- effective way, both to the people of Cape Town and the International Olympics Committee.”
The objective was to heighten awareness about the bid to the national public and to demonstrate the seriousness of it to the IOC,” explains the agency’s accounts director, Russell Hanly.
The principal medium chosen for Cape Town was outdoor. But this entailed navigating the bumpy roads of bureaucratic consent from the city council, the National Roads Department and the traffic authorities. “Luckily we were given outdoor sites in prime positions which under normal circumstances wouldn’t have been legal,” says Hanly.
Bidding for the games has become fiercely competitive over the last 15 years. But apart from the obligatory voices of dissent, some wrangling over the “eurocentricism” of the bid and an apathetic media that waited virtually until the eleventh hour before they hopped on board, the campaign did not become an Olympic mud fight as many had feared.
“Although we were involved from the beginning, we never felt territorial about our contribution to the bid”, says TBWA Hunt Lascaris’ Creative Director Mark Lineveldt. ” Ultimately the Olympics bid is bigger than any individual interest group.”