Beijing 2022 Piques Sponsorship Activation: Brands Still Cautious In “New Normal”

The Chinese winter sports industry has seen a leap in retail-related sales with less than a year to go until the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics starts, pandemic-willing, and corporate sponsors are beginning to ride this wave by creating winter sports-related activation.

According to local media, search interest on skiing and snowboarding has spiked 150% to new highs on the social media platform, Xiaohongshu. Meanwhile, Alibaba reported sales of winter sports equipment soaring by a factor of 14 year-on-year in December and January.

For example, among the “TOP” partners:

• Samsung is planning to partner Chinese state-owned telco China Unicom to provide 5G service at the Olympic venues in Beijing
• Swiss luxury watch maker Omega has launched exclusive timepieces for the Games
• Panasonic is set to provide an ice-making system for ice skating competition rinks and plans to launch Beijing 2022-themed events alongside new product launches.

As for local sponsors:

• Tsingtao Brewery has said it will host promotions at game venues and create custom sports-inspired beer can designs
• Dairy giant Yili will unveil products with Olympic-themed packages.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic – which of course has already caused the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics – continues to overshadow the countdown to Beijing 2022, especially as new COVID cases have emerged in Hebei province, and more specifically Zhangjiakou, home to several Winter Olympic venues in the province, forcing the authorities to enact travel restrictions to and from Beijing.

Speaking to Nikkei Asia, a senior executive of a domestic sponsor of Beijing 2022, “We’ll watch how things play out at the Tokyo Olympics this summer and assess if our sponsorship will lead to business opportunities”.

The Chinese market for winter sports has been forecast to reach US$121 billion (780 billion yuan) by 2022 from US$80.5b (520 billion yuan) in 2019, according to a local research firm.