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Olympian Brand Marketing in China 2008
WebEx, with its 65% market share of the web conferencing market, continues to do a great job of brand awareness marketing, as evidenced by today's sponsorship announcement. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) announced that WebEx will be the official sponsor to support the Beijing 2008 Olympic Volleyball Games. As part of the sponsorship, WebEx has rights to use the 2008 Olympic Games logo for promotional purposes in China and 29 other countries around the world, and the volleyball competition of the IOC has agreed to use a WebEx-colored volleyball - similar to the green-and-blue WebEx logo - for use in all game play.
Yes, WebEx is located in California, the epicenter of beach volleyball culture and home to the Volleyball Hall of Fame, but let's not forget that WebEx co-founder and CTO Min Zhu was raised in China, and perhaps this branded volleyball represents a coming home of sorts. Business week magazine wrote recently about Min that, "In the U.S., Min Zhu is just another e-business entrepreneur. But back in his China homeland, he has attained celebrity status as a native son who overcame poverty to achieve wealth. In his 20s, Zhu, along with many other Chinese intellectuals, was forced to work on a farm for seven years, as the government attempted to get the country's intelligentsia "reeducated" into the appropriate communist mindset. As soon as Beijing relaxed its grip on the citizenry, however, he was one of the first Chinese to leave for the U.S. After earning a degree in engineering from Stanford University, Zhu found a partner from India, Subrah Iyar, and started WebEx, now the world's largest web-conferencing company, in San Jose, Calif."
We'd guess that China is a very important international market for WebEx. This sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic Volleyball Games reinforces their commitment to expand their web conferencing in this burgeoning country. What we find amazing is that WebEx, ever the shrewd marketer, got the IOC to use a blue and green-colored volleyball for tournament play. Although corporate marketing is nothing new in the age of the SBC Park, Gillette Stadium, and the American Airlines Arena, we find WebEx's ability to get the color of the regulation white volleyball changed to the WebEx blue-and-green colors to be nothing short of brilliant and a bit hilarious. Did anyone care to ask the players if they were okay serving and spiking a blue and green volleyball that looks more like a kid's beachball? Can they see it clearly in game play? Will this affect the quality of the game? Anyway, one thing is for sure: With WebEx sponsoring the Olympic Volleyball Games in Beijing, China in 2008, and with billions of viewers around the world watching a blue and green WebEx-branded volleyball get spiked over a net, you know that web conferencing has come of age.
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April 1, 2005
