- You have certainly noticed: we are very much in 2021, but all Olympic marketing materials, ranging from TV ads to the insignia on medals, are stamped with the "Tokyo 2020" logo.
- Why? This is deliberate. Remember, the Olympics were originally scheduled to be held in 2020 but were postponed to this year due to the pandemic. The International Olympic Committee agreed to postpone the summer games for the first time in history. It then decided to retain the original Brandi
- So why are the Olympics still carrying the Tokyo 2020 name when they're taking place in 2021? Apparently, replacing a "0" with a "1" is easier said than done when it comes to Olympics.
- According to Sports, organizers "agreed that the Games would keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020."
- A source noted that there are many reasons, but the biggest is this: Tokyo 2020 merch and many other items bearing the year had already been printed.
- "There are many reasons," a Tokyo organizing committee source told Yahoo Sports. One of them, he said, was that "last year in March, torches, medals, other branding items, and merchandise were already being made using the name 'Tokyo 2020', and a name change would have meant additional costs."
- Olympic organizers were all set to sell merchandise of all kinds like t-shirts, flags, mascot stuffed animals, souvenirs, etc., backed by full-fledged marketing campaigns developed over multiple years.
"All that Olympic IP is branded 2020, including IOC and [organizing committee] creative, sponsor creative, advertising creative, promotional creative, licensed merchandise, tickets, on-site signage, events, you name it, all about to hit the market. It would be an enormous and unnecessary expense for all of this Olympic IP to be changed," Michael Lynch, a veteran sports marketer, explained.
- Interestingly, since this came as the first postponement in Olympic history, though there were several cancellations during wartime, there was no precedent for handling the name.
- Last year, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, during his call with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, agreed to delay the Games by a year because of the coronavirus pandemic after a lot of pressure from athletes, national Olympic bodies, and the sports Federations.
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"The manual for running the Games is about 1,000 pages thick," "It's the flux and that constant change of marketing the Olympics that makes it so much more difficult."
The Olympics had never been postponed, so while there was no precedent on how to handle the name, Statler said the IOC's commitment to preserving tradition meant keeping the name "Tokyo 2020," rather than explaining why there was a 2021 Olympics.
"Having the Games stay with a 2020 (every four-year cycle) is important to their legacy," Statler said.
Rick Burton, sports marketing professor at Syracuse University who served as chief marketing officer for the U.S. Olympic Committee at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, said the work involved in hosting an Olympics is the super bowl times, " 20 ". And there will use 1824 drones for the opening ceremony of Olympics 2020.
Sponsors in Japan have used the Tokyo 2020 logo since 2015. According to The Wall Street Journal, stores in Japan have been selling merchandise since 2018, with souvenirs ranging from $5 to $15,000; most items are stamped with the "Tokyo 2020" logo.
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