Open your newspaper or turn on your radio in the next two weeks and you'll see or hear the Salt Lake Organizing Committee's latest plan for recruiting volunteers for the 2002 Winter Games -- paid advertising.
"Make the Olympics without breaking a sweat," one ad promises, while another offers "17 days of work. A lifetime of pay." Yet another invites readers and listeners to "become part of something quite remarkable. History."SLOC is spending well over $10,000 on the campaign, which will include radio commercials along the same theme over the next several months. Actual recruiting begins March 10 with a kick-off ceremony that organizers hope will draw thousands of Utahns as well as a few yet-to-be named celebrities.
"It's going to take a big, big effort to get what we need," said Ed Eynon, SLOC's senior vice president of human resources. Organizers are looking for 20,000 volunteers at least 18 years old who are willing to work eight to 10 hours a day during the 17 days of the Olympics, Feb. 8-24, 2002.
Eynon said the advertising campaign has stayed within the budget, despite the organizing committee's financial woes. No doubt the $100 million shortfall in the nearly $1.32 billion budget has made finding free labor more important than ever.
These are, after all, not necessarily the most glamorous jobs. For example, volunteers are needed to help collect urine samples from athletes, to shovel snow and to use "diplomacy and firmness" to turn away people trying to enter venues without the proper credentials.
Volunteers will also be needed to translate for athletes and officials, as well as to drive them around. There are also opportunities in sports, broadcasting and at the opening and closing ceremonies in Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah.
"Every job is essential to the success of the Games," Eynon said, noting that while many people may fantasize about working at the nightly medals award ceremonies or at the Delta Center during the figure skating finals, reality is a little different.
For now, SLOC is hoping to get people interested in finding out more about volunteering once the details are released on March 10. The ads, which SLOC has chosen not to show before they begin running, are considered a "teaser" campaign.
"We're not going to release them," said SLOC spokesman Frank Zang of the ads, which will appear at the bottom of the local sections of the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune daily, starting today. "We're going to let the public enjoy them first."
The ads, designed by FJC and N, are intended to to convince Utahns that "being a volunteer for the Olympic Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you let this pass you by, you'll probably regret it," according to Peggy Lander, the ad agency's director of client services.
It's a message Lander is delivering with a sense of humor, though. "The goal here is to keep it lighter. If it makes you smile, it's going to make you feel better about making a decision like this. It's quite a commitment."
Three nearly full-page ads are set to run in newspapers throughout the state in the week leading up to the March 10 launch of the volunteer program at Abravanel Hall. Everyone who already signed up as a pre-Games volunteer will be invited to attend the event, set to begin at 5 p.m.
Eynon hopes enough of the 11,000 volunteers already in SLOC's database show up that the concert hall is filled. Those volunteers, however, need to update their applications if they want to stay on through the Games. That can be done via the Internet, at www.saltake2002.com.
Some 6,000 volunteers are also being sought for the Paralympics, the Games for disabled athletes from around the world that will be held in Salt Lake City from March 7-16, 2002.
SLOC is getting some help with the volunteer effort. Thursday, AchieveGlobal was named the official volunteer and staff training supplier for the Games. The company, which has an office in Draper, will put together a three-part training program.
General volunteer training will take place between February and October 2001; job-specific training will take place from October 2001 to March 2002. Venue-specific training at the competition and non-competition sites will be conducted from January to March 2002.
In conjunction with Thursday's announcement, AchieveGlobal made a $10,000 contribution to SLOC's "One School, One Country" program that invites more than 800 Utah schools to adopt a country participating in the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
AchieveGlobal becomes the 31st corporate participant, with 16 sponsors and 15 suppliers for the 2002 Games and the U.S. Olympic teams through 2004 as part of the joint marketing effort between SLOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Associate Business Editor Steve Fidel contributed to this report.