Get over your hangover, there’s another party coming to town

They are the Games that just keep on giving.

As we work our way through the post Olympics gloom, advertisers are doing their best to help us get over our collective national hangover, by reminding us of our favourite moments and our heroes of the Games.

BT aired a perfectly timed post-Olympics ad last Monday, featuring lots of Games footage, and capitalising on our Olympics euphoria at just the right moment, before any other ads had a chance.  This was potentially a gamble, but one that paid off, and avoided having to compete for attention during the Games themselves.

Brands have been launching Olympics related campaigns since early this year, and yet the great copy keeps on coming. For example, Sainsbury’s latest ad featuring David Beckham and showcasing the supermarket chain’s sponsorship of the Paralympics .

We are likely to see no shortage of ads featuring our Olympic heroes in the coming weeks and months.  Athletes were reportedly being whisked away from their partying, to film more adverts for sponsors seeking to showcase these great sportsmen and women.

So, once the Paralympic flame has been extinguished and the Games advertising-fest finally finishes, it will be interesting to analyse which of the many Olympics media strategies delivered the optimum return for their brands.

On a personal level, my favourite Olympic ad is still the P&G “Thank you, Mum” campaign.

But that’s probably because I’m a mum of two young children, who have been entranced by the Games and left dreaming about which of them can run the fastest and become the next Jess Ennis or Usain Bolt.

“We should never discourage young people from dreaming dreams.” ~ Lenny Wilkens

Louise Brice is a Research Director at Ipsos ASI, the Brand and Advertising Research Specialists