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The Olympics and Advertising - Loser takes all
奧運會和廣告——“敗”者為王
Why a televison-ratings flop is still marketing gold
為什么收視率下降的電視仍然是市場營銷的黃金
Among the records broken at the Tokyo Olympics, one went uncelebrated: the games were the least-watched in decades. In America just 15.5m people tuned in each night, the fewest since NBCUniversal, now part of Comcast’s cable empire, began covering the event in 1988. Viewership was 42% lower than at the Rio games in 2016. Broadcasters in Europe recorded similar falls. Brands that had paid to advertise alongside the jamboree complained. NBC scrambled to offer them free spots to make up for the ratings shortfall. Yet the Olympics illustrated a puzzle of advertising. Even as audiences desert TV, brands are paying as much as ever for commercials.
在東京奧運會上打破的記錄中，有一項沒有得到慶祝：這是幾十年來觀看人數最少的一屆奧運會。在美國，每晚只有1550萬人收看，這是自1988年NBC環球（現為康卡斯特有線電視帝國的一部分）開始報道這一賽事以來收看人數最少的一次。與2016年里約奧運會相比，收視率下降了42%。歐洲的廣播公司也出現了類似的下降。付費在賽事過程中做廣告的品牌紛紛抱怨。NBC趕忙為他們提供免費節目，以彌補收視不足。然而，奧運會顯示出廣告業的一個謎。即使觀眾不再看電視，各大品牌還是一如既往地為費用高昂的廣告買單。
Tokyo was an uneven playing field. Many events took place while Americans and Europeans were asleep. Stars such as Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka left some events early. Covid-19 meant no spectators, and face-masks all round. But the collapse in viewership wasn’t a one-off. Tokyo’s opening ceremony was watched by 36% fewer Americans on the day than watched Rio get under way in 2016. Rio’s audience in turn was 35% lower than London’s in 2012.
東京是一個不公平的競技場。許多賽事是在美國人和歐洲人睡覺的時間進行的。西蒙·拜爾斯和大阪直美等明星提前退出了一些賽事。新冠肺炎意味著沒有現場觀眾，到處都得戴口罩。但收視的銳減并不是一次性的。當天觀看東京奧運會開幕式的美國人比2016年觀看里約奧運會開幕式的美國人少了36%。里約的觀眾數量也比2012年的倫敦少了35%。
While viewers have disappeared, advertisers have stuck around. NBC sold more than $1.2bn in ads for Tokyo, about the same as in Rio. Even after dishing out the compensatory ads, it expects to make a profit on the $1bn or so it paid for the rights to televise the games. It has also managed, in the words of Jeff Shell, its boss, to use them “as a firehose to promote everything else that we’re doing at the company” — above all its streaming service, Peacock, which zoomed up the app-store charts.
雖然觀眾消失了，但廣告商卻一直在這里。NBC在東京的廣告銷售額超過12億美元，與里約大致相當。即使投放了補償性廣告，該公司預計仍將從為獲得奧運會轉播權支付的約10億美元中盈利。用其老板杰夫·謝爾的話來說，它還成功地將其作為“一根消防水帶來推廣我們公司正在做的所有其它事情”——尤其是它的流媒體服務“孔雀”，它在應用商店排行榜上的排名大幅上升。
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