The Creatives Room

Olympic Ads

The Olympic Games provides brands with a context that is almost uniquely powerful: a moment of genuine global attention, combined with stories of human determination that are ready-made for advertising. The best Olympic campaigns don't just attach themselves to that context - they earn their place in it. P&G's 'Thank You, Mom' series found a perspective on the Games that no sports brand had thought to claim. Channel 4's Paralympic coverage transformed how disabled athletes are portrayed in media. These are campaigns that used sport to say something about being human.

The campaigns in this collection

1. Olympics - Sky Sport · 2021

   Sky Sport "Olympics". A Sky Sport promo building anticipation for its Olympic coverage.

2. Go World "Dan Jansen" - Visa · bbdo · 1994

   To shift its Olympic sponsorship from functional payment-exclusivity messaging to a deeper brand bond, Visa launched a global platform celebrating the triumph of the human spirit. The strategy taps into the insight that Olympic viewers care far more about stories of resilience and redemption than ef

3. Super. Human. | Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games - Channel 4 · 4creative · 2021

   To evolve its celebrated 'Superhumans' platform, Channel 4 reframed the story of Paralympians by adding a dimension of struggle and sacrifice. The new idea, "Super. Human.", was built on the insight that focusing only on superhuman achievement obscures the immense, often grueling and mundane, human

4. Rule Yourself (Michael Phelps) - Under Armour · Droga5 · 2016

   Michael Phelps is shown almost entirely in the parts of an athlete's life nobody films: the ice baths, the empty pool at 5am, the cupping bruises, the loneliness - and no race. The insight is that a medal is the visible one percent of a career made of invisible, joyless repetition. The strategic pro

5. London Olympic Games - Coca-Cola · mccann london · 2012

   Coke's London 2012 platform turned the Games into music instead of sponsorship wallpaper. Mark Ronson travelled five countries recording actual athlete sounds - microphones strapped to a hurdler's legs, an archer's release, a table-tennis rally - and built the anthem "Anywhere in the World" with Kat

6. As The Olympic Ends - Spec Ad - Olympiad Paris · Laith Al-Ramahi · 2024

   A spec ad juxtaposing Olympic glory with those denied the chance to compete. Setting "her game never began" against the closing Games turns a celebration into a protest about lives cut short.

7. Paris Paralympics: Considering What - Channel 4 · 4Creative · 2024

   Channel 4's own research found that nearly 60% of people watch the Paralympics to see athletes 'overcome their disabilities' and only 37% for the sport itself - so the film refuses to show anyone overcoming a disability. Instead the Paralympians take on gravity, friction and time: the impassive forc

8. We're the Superhumans - Channel 4 · 4Creative · 2016

   A three-minute film for the Rio Paralympics with a cast of more than 140 disabled people - athletes, musicians, members of the public doing ordinary things - set to Sammy Davis Jr's 'Yes I Can', re-recorded by a band of disabled musicians assembled from around the world. The insight is that the Lond

9. Super. Human. - Channel 4 · 4creative, London · 2021

   The third of Channel 4's Paralympic films, and the one that turns on its own predecessors: where 'Meet the Superhumans' and 'We are the Superhumans' sold awe, this one shows the athletes bleeding, vomiting, crying and swearing through the years of grind - scripted with 20 of them from their real liv

Why this collection is worth studying

Olympic advertising teaches an important lesson about borrowed context. Every brand in the Games is trying to associate itself with the emotion of the moment - which means standing out requires finding a perspective that is genuinely distinctive rather than merely enthusiastic. The campaigns in this collection found that perspective and built on it with genuine craft.

See also

• Best Sports Advertising
• Emotional Ads That Make You Cry