The Surreal Science of Olympic Ads That Don’t Sell You Anything
With Paris 2024 on the horizon, I fell headfirst into a rabbit hole lined with gold medals and athletic tears—not for sport itself, but for its ads. Let me be clear: Olympic advertising is its own genre. It’s not designed to flog running shoes or energy bars. Not right away, at least. Olympic ads are emotional documentaries disguised as commercials, and in many cases, they don’t even mention a product until the logo blinks on like a polite guest at the end.
Take Procter & Gamble’s ‘Thank You, Mom’ campaign. It’s sentimental, sweeping, and about as far from laundry detergent as you can get. And yet, that ad series increased P&G’s brand favourability by eight percent during the London 2012 Games. Eight. Percent. For a campaign that’s basically a short film about parental sacrifice. In marketing years, that’s a leap worthy of Simone Biles.
What’s fascinating is how aggressively these ads avoid the sell. They play the long game. Emotional gravity now, brand equity later. Nike doesn’t show you the cleat, they show you the comeback. Even lesser-known brands get in on the theatrical slow burn. In Japan, Asahi turned its entire campaign into a street-level celebration of perseverance—beer barely featured. In a capitalist twist, the less they sell, the more we seem to buy.
So I’m watching these campaigns slowly slide into my feed again. And I can’t help but admire the hold they have on us. They’re not trying to get us to shop. Not yet. They’re trying to be remembered. And in a crowded adscape that’s usually itchy to get to the call-to-action, that level of restraint feels strangely daring. Like an athlete who knows just when to hold back.
Take Procter & Gamble’s ‘Thank You, Mom’ campaign. It’s sentimental, sweeping, and about as far from laundry detergent as you can get. And yet, that ad series increased P&G’s brand favourability by eight percent during the London 2012 Games. Eight. Percent. For a campaign that’s basically a short film about parental sacrifice. In marketing years, that’s a leap worthy of Simone Biles.
What’s fascinating is how aggressively these ads avoid the sell. They play the long game. Emotional gravity now, brand equity later. Nike doesn’t show you the cleat, they show you the comeback. Even lesser-known brands get in on the theatrical slow burn. In Japan, Asahi turned its entire campaign into a street-level celebration of perseverance—beer barely featured. In a capitalist twist, the less they sell, the more we seem to buy.
So I’m watching these campaigns slowly slide into my feed again. And I can’t help but admire the hold they have on us. They’re not trying to get us to shop. Not yet. They’re trying to be remembered. And in a crowded adscape that’s usually itchy to get to the call-to-action, that level of restraint feels strangely daring. Like an athlete who knows just when to hold back.