As the dust settles on another thrilling Olympic Games, it's time to shift our focus from the incredible athletic performances to the world of advertising that surrounds this global event.
By utilizing our Spots database and Conex Query Builder, we can efficiently analyze the shifts in various advertising categories, including identifying new advertisers and those absent from this year's Olympic Games.
Spots categories: Olympic programming
The chart above shows the % share of Adult program impressions in Olympic programming in the Toronto market.
There have been a few significant changes in impression weights by category this year. Below we highlight the top 3 winning categories that made the biggest splash across TV.
Gold: Retail advertising
Retail has made a bit of a comeback, now claiming the title of the heaviest category with just over 13% share of program impressions in the Toronto market. In comparison, it only ranked as the 4th heaviest category during the 2022 Beijing games, with 10.6% of impressions.
Leading the race in retail advertising was Sobey's, closely followed by Canadian Tire (including SportChek). Additionally, Wayfair and Winners made their debut as new advertisers this year.
Sobeys - Feed the Dream
Silver: Automotive advertising
The automotive category, which previously held the top spot in both the Beijing and Tokyo games, has now dropped to second place in the Paris games. Toyota continues to dominate this category as the heaviest advertiser overall, with a range of ads under the "Start Your Impossible" message.
Toyota - Start Your Impossible
Bronze: Financial advertising
The financial category continues to maintain a strong presence in Olympic advertising and has consistently been the third-heaviest category over the past three events. Royal Bank and Visa feature prominently in this category which also includes Intuit. RBC Financial Group remains the top advertiser, with both RBC and Visa emphasizing their support for Canadian talent in the games.
Visa - Phil Wizard
New Entries & No Shows
Online betting now has a significant presence in sports programming and the Olympics were no exception. BetRivers partnered with CBC as the exclusive online casino advertiser for the Games. This has contributed in making the Games,Toys, Hobbycraft the 5th biggest category this year.
BetRivers - Rope Climbing
Another notable addition was that of the medicines category with significant weight of advertising from Ozempic during the games.
Notable absences at this year's event include Uber, Kraft and Pepsico.
In conclusion, the advertising landscape during this year's Olympics showcased interesting shifts in categories, with retail making a notable comeback and financial and automotive sectors maintaining strong presences. New entries like online betting and medicines also made their mark, adding to the diverse mix of advertisers. As we gear up for the Paralympics, it will be intriguing to see how these trends continue to evolve.
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Blog post update 08-27-2024. An oversight in the initial blog post incorrectly mentioned TD as an advertiser during the Olympics.
