Lord Coe on delivering an Olympic legacy and attracting sponsors

Lord Coe and Jonathan Edwards talk to Marketing's John Reynolds about the London 2012 legacy and recruiting new sponsors for the British Olympic Association.

Lord Coe was the guest speaker at the 2013 Marketing Society Annual Lecture, held at the Royal College of General Practitioners, where he offered marketers an insight into what he believes to be the legacy of the London 2012 Olympics – both to the UK and wider world.

Coe was joined on stage by current triple-jump world record holder Jonathan Edwards.

During his address to the Marketing Society, Coe picked out EDF, BP, Lloyds TSB and Adidas as four of the Olympic sponsors which stood out for him.

He also outlined key lessons learned from the Olympics, which be believed should be invaluable to marketers when running major campaigns.

These include to "nail vision", "communication" to "be brave" and "proportionality".

Referencing "communication" during the Olympics, Coe said it was important to make "sure we weren't being budged toward the metropolitan elite", adding that "sometimes you have to trust your own judgement".

In terms of "proportionality", Coe said "you have to be able to triage things that are important".

Afterwards, he spoke to Marketing about progress being made to create an Olympic legacy, and why sponsors will soon be signing up to back Team GB at Rio 2016.

Market Reports

Get unprecedented new-business intelligence with access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s new Advertising Intelligence Market Reports.

Find out more

Enjoying ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s content?

 Get unlimited access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s premium content for your whole company with a corporate licence.

Upgrade access

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an alert now

Partner content