The 2002 Winter Games have a new sponsor, and it's a big one -- a "monster," as a matter of fact.
Not only is monster.com, the Web service for job seekers and recruiters, contributing cash and services worth more than $20 million to the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and the U.S. Olympic teams through 2004 as the official online career management services sponsor, it's the first-ever "dot.com" company to help underwrite a Games.Tuesday's announcement came as the International Olympic Committee readied a new promotional campaign set to be launched this week at a gathering of sports marketers in New York City. The ads are expected to help the IOC recover from the scandal surrounding Salt Lake City's Olympic bid.
Officials of the Swiss-based IOC, though, insist the campaign is not in response to what they term the "Olympic crisis" that broke late last year. "It doesn't even mention the IOC," said Michael Payne, the IOC's marketing director. "It's very much focused on Olympic values."
There are six television commercials as well as eight radio spots and print advertisements in the reportedly $150 million global campaign, the first-ever by the IOC. Each focuses on inspirational stories of Olympic athletes -- some famous, some not -- and feature the slogan "Celebrate humanity."
A brief glimpse of the five Olympic rings is as close as the ads get to referring to the IOC. They are intended to run in several languages throughout the world through the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia, that end in October.
SLOC has been struggling, too, to recover from the damage done by allegations bidders tried to buy the votes of IOC members with cash, gifts, scholarships and trips. Even with this latest sponsor, organizers still face a shortfall in their nearly $1.32 billion budget.
But the signing of monster.com could open the door to more Internet-based companies becoming sponsors, said Rob Prazmark, head of Olympic sales and marketing for IMG, the New York-based company hired to help sell sponsorships.
"It's a brand-new marketplace in dot.coms," Prazmark told the Deseret News. "No one's getting exclusivity over the Internet. It just happens to be the medium they do business on; they just happen to be e-businesses."
SLOC President Mitt Romney agreed. "Clearly this is a big step for us. It opens the door," Romney said. "It won't be the last 'dot.com' sponsor."
What monster.com will be doing for the SLOC is helping to recruit employees and volunteers through the company's Web site, monster.com. The organizing committee needs some 26,000 volunteers beginning this March and is expected to expand its full-time staff to 750 employees by 2002.
The Massachusetts-based company, the leading global online job-search and recruitment network, is a division of TMP Worldwide Inc. Some 9.7 million job-hunters visit monster.com Web sites in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France and other countries. A special link will be set up with SLOC's Web site.
There are now 16 companies sponsoring the 2002 Winter Games, meaning they are coming up with at least $20 million in cash, goods and services. Another eight qualify as suppliers to the Salt Lake Games through contributions of at least several million dollars in goods and services.
Among them is Drake Beam Morin, which will help SLOC employees find new jobs after the Games are over. Revenues from both sponsors and suppliers are split with the USOC, through a joint marketing agreement.