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Produced by | Pai Finance

Text｜ Luo Li

The Paris Olympic Games are coming to an end.

On the evening of August 9, after nearly two hours of fierce competition, the Chinese men's table tennis team finally defeated the Swedish team 3:0 to win the championship, achieving the achievement of winning the men's table tennis team gold medal at the Olympic Games for five consecutive years.

As of 11:00 on August 11, the Chinese team has won 39 gold medals, 27 silver medals, and 24 bronze medals.

"China's Flying Fish" Pan Zhanle successfully broke the historical record in the men's 100m freestyle final and won the first gold medal for the national swimming team. On his 20th birthday, he successfully reversed the situation as the last runner in the men's 4x100m relay and helped the Chinese swimming team win another gold medal.

After defeating the world No. 1 Swiatek and reaching the final, "Rocket Girl" Zheng Qinwen defeated Croatian player Vikic and won the first Olympic women's singles gold medal for Chinese tennis, opening the chapter of "Zheng Qinwen era";

"Little Fatty" Fan Zhendong defeated dark horse player Moregod in the men's singles table tennis final and won the gold medal in the men's singles table tennis, which was cheered;

"Diving genius girl" Quan Hongchan once again performed the disappearing splash trick, winning two gold medals and successfully defending her title;

Deng Yawen, a Chinese athlete competing in freestyle BMX for the first time, won the gold medal with a high score, achieving a breakthrough from zero.

At this Paris Olympics, we witnessed the rise of a new generation of athletes born after 2000, and along with the influx of traffic came the rush of attention from brands.

The Olympic champions' ability to sell goods is obvious to all. For example, a pair of "ugly fish slippers" that Quan Hongchan wore in the women's double 10-meter final and cost only a few dozen yuan became popular accidentally and became one of the most popular "champion items" at the moment; after the tennis final, Zheng Qinwen's tennis racket of the same model was also out of stock for a time. In addition, other items that netizens have been calling for include the same swimming goggles as Pan Zhanle.

Before the Olympics, many brands had already placed their bets on "Olympic champions".

1. Betting on the “Queen” Zheng Qinwen, the “Flying Fish” Pan Zhanle, to break the world record

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The most watched person in this Paris Olympics is Zheng Qinwen, who won the women's singles tennis championship.

On August 4, 21-year-old Zheng Qinwen won the first Olympic singles gold medal in the history of Chinese tennis, creating history in Chinese tennis and officially opening the curtain of the "Zheng Qinwen era".

She started her tennis career at the age of 17 and reached the quarterfinals of the US Open and Australian Open within two years, earning her the nickname "Rocket Girl". In January this year, Zheng Qinwen won the runner-up in the Australian Open women's singles, becoming the second Chinese player to advance to the Grand Slam finals after Li Na.

As an "old money" sport, tennis has always been a sport favored by brands and has a high degree of commercial recognition. In the Forbes 2023 list of female athletes' income, 9 of the top 10 are tennis players.

In the list of the highest-paid female athletes in sports in 2023 released by Forbes magazine, Zheng Qinwen ranked 15th with a total income of US$7.2 million (about RMB 51.62 million), making her the first Chinese female tennis player to appear on the Forbes list after Li Na. Among them, the income from tournaments was US$1.7 million (about RMB 12.18 million) and the income from off-court endorsements was US$5.5 million (about RMB 39.44 million).

According to incomplete statistics, Zheng Qinwen currently has cooperation with more than ten brands, including Nike, Ant Group, Gatorade, Yili, Wilson, Swish, Bawang Tea Princess, Lancome and other endorsements.

Since the beginning of this year, Lancôme and Bawang Chaji have successively "bet" on Zheng Qinwen. In April, Lancôme announced that Zheng Qinwen would serve as the ace pioneer of Little Black Bottle; and the new tea brand Bawang Chaji officially announced that Zheng Qinwen would serve as the "Health Ambassador", creating the first sports marketing case in the tea beverage track.

After Zheng Qinwen advanced to the women's singles finals of the Paris Olympics, Bawang Tea announced that it would give out 150,000 free coupons to celebrate. Brands such as Yili, Swish, and Lancome also sent pictures and texts on social media to congratulate her.

In 2022, Zheng Qinwen made his first appearance at a world-renowned Grand Slam tennis tournament, and won the French Open, where he advanced to the top 16. Since then, his commercial value has exploded. In 2022, Ant Group signed Zheng Qinwen as a "brand chasing ambassador." Nike "bet" on Zheng Qinwen earlier. In 2015, at the National Youth Tennis Tournament (Nike Junior Tennis) held by Nike, the 13-year-old Zheng Qinwen was signed by Nike for his outstanding performance.

In 2023, Zheng Qinwen achieved great success in the WTA series of events, won the WTA Most Improved Player Award, and won the women's tennis singles gold medal at the Asian Games. Her commercial value has continued to rise. After winning the Paris Olympics, Zheng Qinwen's commercial value is about to usher in a new surge. It is reported that the sports agency behind Zheng Qinwen is IMG, which also has Chinese athletes such as Gu Ailing, Su Yiming, and Li Na, and is extremely good at business operations. IMG's parent company Endeavor is the world's largest agency. Referring to the development paths of "fellow students" Li Na and Gu Ailing, Zheng Qinwen, whose bonuses and endorsement sponsorship income exceeded 51 million yuan last year, is expected to have a commercial value of over 100 million this year.

It is worth mentioning that at the Paris Olympics, the mixed doubles tennis team composed of Zhang Zhizhen and Wang Xinyu also performed very well, winning the silver medal in their first match. Before the Olympics, Zhang Zhizhen signed cooperation agreements with brands such as Bright Dairy, Le Power, Cathay Pacific, Hublot, Geox, and TUMI.

Another Olympic champion who has become a hot topic is Pan Zhanle, known as the "Chinese Flying Fish".

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In the men's 100m freestyle final of the Paris Olympics, Pan Zhanle broke his own world record of 46.80 seconds with a time of 46.40 seconds, becoming the first men's short-distance freestyle Olympic champion in Chinese swimming history and the first Asian athlete in history to win the men's 100m freestyle final at the Olympics.

In the men's 4 × 100m medley relay final, Pan Zhanle made a strong comeback in the last leg and achieved a historic breakthrough with his teammates Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang and Sun Jiajun, winning the men's 4 × 100m medley relay gold medal for the first time, breaking the United States' 40-year monopoly.

Long before the Olympics, many brands had already bet on Pan Zhanle. Before the Paris Olympics, Pan Zhanle signed two major brands, Ctrip and Mentholatum. Before the opening of the Paris Olympics, Qingyang also officially announced that Pan Zhanle and another post-00 swimmer Li Bingjie would become its brand ambassadors.

After winning the championship, Nongfu Spring quickly signed Pan Zhanle as its spokesperson. Didi Chuxing officially announced that he became the Didi Chuxing online car-hailing "Happy" Ambassador, and also launched a number of taxi-hailing activities, such as the 3-minute no-car compensation and high-temperature subsidies for drivers.

According to media statistics, Pan Zhanle currently has cooperation with more than 5 brands, including Ctrip, Nongfu Spring, Mentholatum, CLEAR, Didi, etc.

Earlier, Pan Zhanle performed very well in the 2024 Doha World Championships. Not only did he win the extremely important men's 100m freestyle gold medal, he also helped the Chinese team win three relay gold medals, setting a new record for the Chinese men's swimming team.

In addition to his outstanding performance, the famous interview scenes of Pan Zhanle, born in the 2000s, have also been unprecedentedly popular on major social media platforms. #Pan Zhanle is here to complain again#, #Pan Zhanle didn't expect that foreigners are worse than me#, #Pan Zhanle complains as soon as he opens his eyes every day# and other hot searches continued, and the number of readings of the topic once soared to 890 million.

In addition, many members of the swimming team have also been favored by brands. Xu Jiayu has become the brand spokesperson for the sports and leisure brand Arena before the competition. Qin Haiyang has cooperated with brands such as LV, Yili, Pacific Insurance, Super Energy, Nongfu Spring, and Anta. Due to his performance on the field and personal popularity, Wang Shun joined hands with the French high-end skincare brand Biotherm and became its new brand ambassador.

Swimmer Zhang Yufei, a "Butterfly Queen" and a "veteran" born after 1995, won 1 silver and 5 bronze medals, and her personal career Olympic medal count reached 10, becoming the athlete with the most medals in the history of the Chinese team. Before this Olympic Games, Zhang Yufei already had more than 10 commercial endorsements, including Tmall, Pacific Insurance, Yili, Honor, Omega, Colanli, Dior, China Mobile, Nongfu Spring, Super Energy and Senge.

In the swimming events of the Paris Olympics, the Chinese team won a total of 12 medals, including 2 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze medals, setting a record for the most Olympic medals in history.

2. In addition to the dominant events of table tennis, badminton and diving, the debut of breakdancing also attracted attention

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As the absolute advantage of the Chinese team, table tennis is also a popular choice for brands. Chinese sports brand Li Ning chose to directly cooperate with the national table tennis team. Popular players such as "Little Devil" Sun Yingsha, "Big Head" Wang Chuqin and "Little Fatty" Fan Zhendong are also the targets of brands' betting. The three of them became brand spokespersons for Yili at the same time.

According to incomplete statistics, during the Paris cycle, Sun Yingsha's personal contracted cooperation brands include Coca-Cola, Yili, Vanward Electric, Procter & Gamble (and Tide under Procter & Gamble), Shengxiang Flooring, PICO, Qin Xiangjian, etc. Wang Chuqin cooperated with brands such as Procter & Gamble, Yili, Panasonic, Kiehl's, and Coca-Cola.

Fan Zhendong, who won the men's singles gold medal in table tennis, was chosen by Yili and Anta to be their spokesperson. After Fan Zhendong won the championship, Yili, Anta and other brands quickly posted congratulations on their official Weibo accounts.

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The Diving Dream Team, which is also highly watched, is the team with the largest number of post-00s in many competitions. Currently, it has cooperation with nearly 10 brands, including Li Ning, Blue Moon, Coca-Cola, Nongfu Spring, Nutrilite and other brands.

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The badminton event, which also has three popular combinations of "Ya Si", "Fan Chen" and "Liang Wang", ended the Paris Olympics with 2 golds and 3 silvers. The two gold medals of the national badminton team came from the women's doubles and mixed doubles, respectively, by the "Ya Si" combination of Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong and the "Fan Chen" combination of Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan. There are also many brands that bet on these two team combinations, including Kunlun Lubrication, Chao Neng, Ba Wang Cha Ji, etc.

In addition, the "Liang Wang" duo, composed of Liang Weikang and Wang Chang, made it to the men's doubles finals in their first Olympic Games and won the silver medal, and their world ranking soared from outside the top 400 to the top 10. During the competition, the two frequently stood out with their super "relaxed sense" and ability to be funny.

It is worth noting that in early July this year, Ctrip announced three groups of spokespersons, including the "Liang Wang" group. In addition to this group, there are also Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle and Chinese gymnast Zhang Boheng, who was born in the 2000s.

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As the fresh blood entering the Olympics for the first time, breakdancing is also favored by brands. Breakdancing athlete Liu Qingyi has added Lancome, Yili, Bawang Tea Princess, Keep and other endorsements since the beginning of the year.

3. Old brands make a big mistake, sports marketing dispels the “championship-only theory”

As a popular event with high traffic volume, the Olympics has always been a battlefield for brands to spend money on marketing. Throughout the previous Olympic Games, national team players in table tennis, swimming, diving, gymnastics, shooting and other sports are generally favored by brands.

This year's Paris Olympics has a total of 15 top sponsors, covering various major fields, two of which are Chinese brands Alibaba and Mengniu.

Alibaba provides AI services for the Paris Olympics.

As early as January 2017, Alibaba entered the "Global Partner Program" list, beating Amazon in cloud computing and e-commerce categories and becoming one of the Olympic TOP partners with a sponsorship period of ten years.

Mengniu and Coca-Cola jointly sponsored the 2020 TOP. It is reported that in June 2019, Mengniu and Coca-Cola jointly signed a 12-year contract worth US$3 billion with the International Olympic Committee to become TOP joint sponsors, and the contract will take effect from 2021.

There are also many Chinese brands that choose to bet on Olympic champions in advance, such as Yili, Anta, Coca-Cola and other brands. The travel platform Ctrip signed most of the "champion" favorites in advance before the game.

In addition to regular participants such as dairy companies and sports brands, there are also many new tea brands joining the brand marketing team of the Paris Olympics.

Chabaidao signed Chinese women's basketball players Yang Liwei and Yang Shuyu as spokespeople; Heytea opened a pop-up store directly on the banks of the Seine and invited many athletes to the store for tasting.

Bawang Cha Ji successfully bet on several Olympic champions, including Zheng Qinwen, the champion of women's singles in tennis, the gold medalist of the badminton women's doubles team Fanchen, and Wang Shun, the bronze medalist of the 200-meter individual medley, and was teased by netizens as "winning like crazy". After Zheng Qinwen won the championship, Bawang Cha Ji launched a celebration event, where users who guessed the correct password could receive free coupons for related items, "Cheers to health ambassador Zheng Qinwen", which successfully promoted brand awareness.

However, when brands are betting on Olympic champions, they are bound to make mistakes. Yili, for example, attracted controversy for "opening champagne halfway through the competition."

On August 3, some netizens broke the news that before the women's singles tennis final in which Zheng Qinwen participated and the men's singles table tennis final in which Fan Zhendong participated at the Paris Olympics, Yili had already put material on the big screen in Sanlitun, Beijing, congratulating Zheng Qinwen for "winning the silver medal in the women's singles tennis event", "Congratulations to Fan Zhendong for winning the men's singles gold medal", and "Sun Yingsha for winning the women's singles gold medal".

In addition to the "opening champagne halfway" operation, there were certain deviations in the content of Zheng Qinwen and Sun Yingsha's materials, which caused heated discussions.

That night, Yili's official account posted an apology on social media, stating that in order to ensure that the joy could be shared with everyone immediately after the game, the large-screen delivery effect was tested in advance, resulting in the material being exposed at an inappropriate time.

As a frequent sponsor of the Olympic Games, Yili launched its brand with a torch ice cream during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, which has since become a classic marketing case in the golden age of China's dairy industry. In 2008, Yili became the dairy product sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, and subsequently participated in major events such as the London Olympics, the Sochi Winter Olympics, the Rio Olympics, the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and the Beijing Winter Olympics.

As early as April this year, Yili began to implement the Olympic marketing strategy and took the lead in releasing the "Yili Team" promotional video, which included many popular athletes such as Quan Hongchan, Chen Yuxi, Wang Zongyuan, Zhang Yufei, Qin Haiyang, Fan Zhendong, Sun Yingsha, and Wang Chuqin. In May, Yili officially announced that sprint hurdle athlete Liu Xiang and China's first Olympic gold medalist Xu Haifeng became Yili brand ambassadors. Before the opening ceremony, Yili invited Lu Yu, who "bumped" into the Paris Olympic logo, to become the Paris viewing ambassador.

In terms of marketing, Yili has put in a lot of effort. In 2023, Yili's sales expenses were 22.572 billion yuan, and the bulk of the expenses were also advertising and marketing expenses, reaching 13.991 billion yuan. Of course, there are certain results. In the 2023 Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands List, Yili's brand value once again topped the global dairy industry list.

In recent years, after experiencing the celebrity scandals in the entertainment industry, brands have begun to focus on the sports industry in selecting spokespersons. Popular sports darlings such as Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin have been favored by many brands in recent years.

However, as fan culture invades the sports circle, these new generation sports idols with large traffic have also been troubled, and even absurd scenes have occurred in the Olympic Games. In the women's singles table tennis final of the Paris Olympics, Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng, as the main players of the national women's table tennis team, should have been a pleasing dialogue between the two strong teams, but because the fans at the scene cheered for Sun Yingsha one-sidedly, and some even booed and gave Chen Meng the middle finger, negative public opinion was triggered. What's more, some people flooded into the personal social platforms of players and coaches such as Chen Meng, Ma Lin, and Liu Guoliang after the game, leaving messages of accusation and scolding.

Winning or losing is important in competitive sports, but it is not the only criterion for judging, and athletes are not worthless except for winning gold medals. After dispelling the "gold medal theory", many brands are also turning their attention to non-champion athletes. For example, in the women's 100-meter hurdles revival race at the Paris Olympics, Chinese athlete Wu Yanni, who missed the semi-finals, once became famous in the track and field because of her high appearance and flamboyant personality. Although she is not a popular athlete to win the championship, her commercial value should not be underestimated. Currently, she is involved in commercial endorsements or advertising brands including Yili, Adidas, Nova Coffee, FAW Bestune, Feike, etc.

Nowadays, the audience watching the Olympic Games is becoming more relaxed, and their focus is no longer limited to the results, but the Olympic spirit of breaking through and defeating oneself. These shining points beyond the results are becoming a new direction for brand marketing.