Mascots, the Olympics, and Audiences

Yesterday the world was introduced to Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots for the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The two were fashioned from drops of molten steel that spilled during the pouring of the last beam for the London Olympic stadium. They magically sprung to life, began to learn the Olympic and Paralympic events, and now roam throughout the world on a rainbow, teaching children about the games.

Or, at least, that's the story that is shown in this short film about the shiny, jiggly creatures.

In reality, the two friends are creations of London agency Iris. The one-eyed, bipedal, androgynous creatures were chosen as non-human, non-animal beings that would appeal to children, and whose "skin" could be changed to reflect different nations, events, etc. The orange light atop the head of each represents the lights standard on London taxicabs; while the single eye can be used as a camera to facilitate social, video, and interactive marketing.

The names point to the contributions that the U.K. has made to the modern Olympic Games: Much Wenlock in Shropshire held games that inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin to found the modern Olympic movement in the 19th century; Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire was the location of the first "parallel Olympics" in 1948 for World War II soldiers with spinal injuries.

Within a day of their introduction, the London 2012 Wenlock and Mandeville are quite active in public interaction - each is on Facebook (I am Wenlock and I am Mandeville) and Twitter (@iamwenlock and @iammandeville), and, of course, they have their own website. And together they are visiting schools to encourage children to live active lifestyles.

Photo from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG)

Also within the past 36 hours, the duo have received much flak (disdain, scorn, disbelief, derision, contempt) from online audiences. One journalist compared them to a cross between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mike Wazowski; one design critic called them "computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation."

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), on the other hand, hopes that the mascots will "chime with children," "connect young people with sport and tell the story of our proud Olympic and Paralympic history," and "help inspire kids to strive to be the best they can be."

It would seem that many adults (or at least, many vocal, online adults) fail to see the attractiveness of creatures. We've yet to hear the voice of the children on the matter.

If the main audience for Wenlock and Mandeville is adults, LOCOG may have missed their target. If their main audience is indeed children, they may have hope yet.

Note to marketers: create for your audience.

"I love my city. Don't send the Olympics here."

In less than five days from this writing, the International Olympic Committee will decide which city will host the 2016 Olympics. The top contenders are Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro. Officials from each city have spent months (or years?) trying to convince the world (or, at least the Committee) that their city is worthy of hosting the Games. In similar fashion, a grassroots organization of purported Chicagoans has launched a marketing effort promoting the Olympic bid...for Rio.

The group's website, www.ChicagoansForRio.com, quite attractively displays information about the Olympic Games and why Chicago should NOT be the host in 2016. The main reason why not? Finances. These Chicagoans do not want their city to go bankrupt with all of the obligatory Olympic-sized construction and infrastructure projects.

The "Chicagoans for Rio" site features an animated counter claiming to show the "2009 City Deficits to Date," plus fun facts about the debt incurred by previous host cities of the Olympics, a photo slideshow of the now-unused 21 (out of 22) Olympic venues in Athens, and a scrolling marquee of supposed site visitor comments supporting Rio de Janeiro's bid over Chicago's. Other helpful (or amusing) features of the site include links to recent crime records from Chicago; a "head-to-head" comparison of Rio vs. Chicago; and links to purchase "Chicagoans for Rio" merchandise, to email the IOC, and to support Rio's bid on the Rio 2016 website.

Last Thursday, a Chicago Fox News station broadcasted the story of "Chicagoans for Rio", but was politely asked to stop talking about it, as the report "would harm Chicago's chances" for being awarded the bid. Ironically, this shushing only garnered more attention for the movement, as Drudge Report, Twitterers, and several online journals and blogs spread the word about the cease-and-desist.

The publicity about "Chicagoans for Rio" has also drummed up some questions about the group's veracity: given that the website lists no contact information, how do we know for sure that the group members are truly from Chicago? Who's to say they are not really from, say, Rio? And where are they getting their budget deficit facts, anyway?

Nevertheless, let's assume for the moment that "Chicagoans for Rio" truly is a group of Chicagoans willing to forego the honor of hosting the Olympics in exchange for some semblance of fiscal responsibility. Assuming that they are a spontaneous grassroots organization with no budget, here is what I would recommend if they truly want to dissuade the International Olympic Committee by Friday:

1) Get people talking. The shushing of Fox News generated some buzz already; "Chicagoans for Rio" needs more. Start a blog telling the full story behind the website, behind the Fox News story, behind the shushing - everything! - and include buttons to make it easy for people to Tweet, email, embed, Digg it, and post it to Facebook. Invite people to use the Twitter hashtag #chicagoansforrio to share reasons why the Olympics should be hosted in Rio and not in Chicago. Post YouTube videos in which Chicagoans share these reasons audio-visual style.

2) Get people involved. The whole anonymous website thing might be the "safe" way for the organizers to go, but they need some legitimate method of showing how many Chicagoans support Rio for the 2016 Olympics. They could start a petition (secure, of course) on the website in which visitors submit their names and email addresses to show their support for Chicagoans for Rio. Or they could start a Facebook group (the group "2,000,000 for the olympics in chicago" currently has only 99,540 members). Or they could invite Chicagoans to tweet their "send the Olympics to Rio" messages to the IOC (@Olympics).

3) Be the anti-Chicago2016. For everything that the Chicago Olympic Committee has done to promote Chicago as the host city for the 2016 Games, the "Chicagoans for Rio" group should do the same to plead against Chicago as the 2016 host city. So maybe they cannot replicate the entire Chicago 2016 site by Friday, but they could still create some videos or write some articles to counter the COC's arguments point-for-point. They could post a nice slideshow describing why Rio, rather than Chicago, is ideal for the 2016 Olympics.

But again, these suggestions could only be worthwhile if "Chicagoans for Rio" are truly in earnest. And even if "Chicagoans for Rio" do try some of these tactics, the plan could always backfire - the International Olympic Committee might vote for Chicago 2016 just to spite them.