Olympic Sport Organization Positioning

Introduction- Overview
Today, Olympic Games have become one of the most large-scale and profitable global media events. Today, sport, especially events associated with the Olympics, has not only become great entertainment, occupation and lifestyle, but solid business as well. In the world of sports, marketing, promotion and advertisement are fundamental tools for generating great profits. The current essay will first explore the principles of market segmentation and the STP process in Olympic Sport Organization (OSO); secondly it will define the term of positioning and how the OSO have been positioning Olympic events. Then it will analyze value demanded by target market, develop the perceptual map of the competitive market and locate the Olympic event in the market space to identify its possible competitive advantage. Lastly the development of the marketing mix in accordance to deliver and communicate the desired positioning has been examined.

The STP Process

Marketing is not a question of method alone. Creating and developing a marketing function in sport organization is influenced by what the term marketing is seen to mean. On the one hand, and by the operational problems it is supposed to resolve on the other (Ferrand & Torrigiani, 2005). The method by which whole markets are subdivided into different segments is referred to as the STP process. STP refers to the three activities that should be undertaken, usually sequentially, if segmentation is to be successful. These are segmentation, targeting, and positioning, and this essay is structured around these key elements. Ferrand & Torrigiani (2005) divided the Olympic event market into four segments. The first segment in Olympic Sport Organization essentially proposes services that make it possible to practice and attend sport. The second segment refers to the characteristics of the persons who consume these services. The third segment determines the time at which the event organized. The fourth segment refers to consumer motives and expectations.

Positioning
Positioning is what you make in the target audiences mind. Positioning refers to the place an offering occupies in the customers mind on important attributes relative to competitive offerings (Ferrand & Torrigiani, 2005). Positioning is important because it is the means by which goods and services can be differentiated from one another and so give consumers a reason to buy.

Value Demanded by Target Segment

Olympic Sport Organization target its market based on behavioral segmentation, while the value demanded by the target segment is based on their knowledge of this event, their attitude towards it, the way they use it and their response to it. Sport tourist is one of the largest segments Gibson (1998: p. 49) defines sport tourism as Leisure-based travel that takes individuals temporarily outside of their home communities to participate in physical activities, to watch physical activities, or to venerate attractions associated with physical activities (Shipway). This conceptualizes sport tourism as three distinct areas: travel to take part; travel to watch; and travel to venerate, worship or celebrate sport. The Olympic Games are the best thing that has ever happened to Australias tourism industry, John Morse, managing director of the Australia Tourist Commission said a few months after the Sydney Closing Ceremony. The Olympic Games have changed forever the worlds view of Australia. In Olympic Australia 2000, Australia was perhaps the first country to truly realise the potential benefit of being an Olympic host

nation, from the moment of Sydneys election they developed a strategy to maximise the return (Payne, 2006).

Perceptual map
Figure 1demonstrates the perceptual mapping of all relevant competing organizations by assuming that the sport tourist attraction and variety sport gaming are the important market position criteria.
High Sport tourist attraction

Limited Sport games

Extensive Sport games

Low Sport tourist attraction

Figure 1- Perceptual map of the competitors offering in the market

Competitive Advantages
The Olympic event has following distinctive features which develop the perceptual map of all relevant offerings from its competitor market: - The Olympic Games are unique in their ability to present a host nation and a city to the world (Payne, 2006). - Being the global sports ground for the top athletes in the world and a place for unison and teamwork of individuals around the globe (Payne, 2006). - One of the most popular and most watched events in the world. Broadcasting companies, in their turn, pay considerable sums of money to buy the rights for transmission of the Games (Lee, 2011). - However, this deal is considered a very successful one, since most of their advertising spots will be sold in a high price to be broadcast during Olympic Games (Lee, 2011). - It involves sponsorship which provides products and services, technologies, expertise and personnel to help in the organization of the Games as well as the revenue. The Olympic Games provide incomparable returns for the sponsors (Lee, 2011).

- Technology has always played a critical role in the development of the Olympic Movement, expanding the Olympic experience beyond the confines of the spectator in the Olympic stadium (Payne, 2006).

Market Positioning in Olympic events

Olympic sport organization positioning is in relation to its competitors. It refers to the customers perceptions of the place a product or brand occupies in a market segment. We stress that brand identity refers to the way an OSO wants to be perceived (Ferrand & Torrigiani, 2005). At this stage, the question of what is important determines the current positioning. Generally, the organization brand positioning process, involves these steps: 1. Identifying competing OSO brands. 2. Identifying the attributes that define the brand space through in-depth interviews. 3. Collecting information from a sample of fans about their perceptions of each brand on the relevant attributes through questionnaires or interviews (they are asked to rate the match between each attribute and their perception of the brand using scale from 1[totally disagree] to 5 [fully agree]).

Conclusion
Sports Marketing set a broad audience, meaning extraordinary, exercise ideas, public service value of the wide range of features in one, IT enterprises and the combination of sporting events, nature easily and rapidly enhance the brand and image building. Olympic event is the greatest sport events in the world which offers variety of the competitive advantages to its competitors in terms of products, service and sponsorship. The Olympic event from Athens Olympic 1896 until currently that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is organizing the 2012 London Olympic event has been following rapid progress in terms of the communicating and delivering the market positioning.

References
Ferrand, A. & Torrigiani, L. (2005). Marketing of Olympic sport organisations. US: Human Kinetics. Gibson, H. (1998) Sport tourism: A critical analysis of research, Sport Management Review Vol. 1: pp. 4576. Lee, J. K. (2011). Marketing and Promotion of the Olympic Games. The Sport journal, United States Sport Academy, 1543-9518. Payne, M. (2006). OLYMPIC TURNAROUND: How the Olympic Games Stepped Back from the Brink of Extinction to Become the Worlds Best Known Brand. London Business Press Limited. Shipway, R. The Changing Sportscape of Sport Tourism in South West England. Centre for Event and Sport Research, School of Services Management, Bournemouth University.