Corporate Sponsors and the Olympics

It seems as if corporate sponsors are going to face a tough decision between supporting the Chinese regime and the Olympic Games or being critical and withdrawing their support!

This article shows the start of the debate:

China’s poor human rights record poses a special challenge for companies seeking to capitalise on a worldwide audience while maintaining reputations as good global citizens. No companies are considering pulling out yet, but many know this is just the beginning of a concentrated push by a variety of interest groups.

“The role of the sponsors in subsidising this event, while monks are being shot, is not going to look very good,” the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, said.

(…)

Damien Ryan, a Hong Kong media relations adviser for Olympic sponsors, said: “What’s at stake is much more than the tens of millions of dollars these sponsors have bet on the Games. It’s their future business with China.”The Games are being framed by many China observers as the country’s arrival on the world stage. They are expected to attract about 500,000 tourists and 4 billion TV viewers. Some sponsors were reviewing their media strategies and may scale back news conferences, Mr Ryan said. They were also likely to reduce the number of company spokesmen and shift focus to one-on-one interviews they felt they could better control.

It will be interesting to observe the public relation and media campaigns of the corporate sponsors! At the moment it does seem that money and business are more important than human rights! However, we will try to reveal a few interesting stories on this blog in the coming months! If you have any examples on how PR campaigns are carried out, share it with the world on this blog!