Olympic organisation, architecture, infrastructure and advertising

So, what did you think to the stadium?

The RIBA Stirling Prize nominated stadium.

Or the Velodrome?

The RIBA Stirling Prize nominated Velodrome.

Or the 'masterpiece' aquatics centre?

Each of the permanent venues is amazing in its architecture and has been developed not just with the games in mind.

It's that L word again: legacy.

Being aware that it was unlikely that an 80,000 seater athletics arena would be needed again during its lifespan; and the inconvenience of having an athletics track between football supporters and the pitch, the stadium was designed as a national athletics centre, but with the excess seats being removed to provide a permanent 25,000.

Similarly in the aquatics centre there would never be a need for 17,500 seats. 2,500 is much more comfortable, so the temporary 'wings' can be removed.

There's no massive white elephant, no hugely unnecessary, unfit for purpose enduring megaliths. And yes, it does mean that in a year's time we will have a collection of rather fantastic local leisure facilities without a centrepiece reminder in the same way as the Birds' Nest stadium. But perhaps the centrepiece reminder is actually a somewhat more permanent one - the local communities that benefit from having new, excellent though not excessive facilities.

Similarly the temporary locations have been amazing. This is London, don't forget, where land is already at a premium, so the fewer excess buildings the better. Hence the rather genius decision to locate the beach volleyball in Horse Guards' Parade. Beach volleyball isn't one of our national sports; the requirement for a new, national, bespoke beach volleyball simply wasn't there, to build one would have ended up with it being mothballed or demolished. So there was the rather amazing temporary structure constructed in the centre of London within the Royal parks - a mass of open space within easy reach of the heart of the transport system which actually can't be built upon - it is a Royal park, it can only have temporary structures on it, but it is available and free.

One of the things that continued to amaze me was the fluid organisation that sat behind these brilliant structures. Clearly these stadia have to cope with lots of people at any one time; and often the sessions are arranged so that there is very minimal changeover. Combine that with the extra security measures which have to be employed, and the feat to make this all run smoothly seems almost impossible.

So they looked to the airports. Although we may not enjoy them, airports are surprisingly efficient at getting people and all their baggage through security and on to the planes. There is a waiting area until you are ready to check in and pass security, and then there is another holding area where you wait whilst the unloading of existing passengers and luggage and various other operational exercises take place, allowing a reasonably swift and comfortable embarkation.

And so it was with the Olympics. A brilliantly organised one-way system, with a well-staffed and efficiently operated security and ticket check, with nice, big, open, almost festival-styled holding areas meant that you barely even noticed you were part of the system because you were concentrating on the fish and chips and Olympic-branded wine.

And everything had been done to make the holding areas as pleasant as possible. There was artwork to explore, and more trees than you could shake a stick at. The greenery really was a triumph. It helps that everything was new - well, except at Stratford where they had tried to hide the rest of the city from the Olympic crowds with the 'leafy screenage' project - an art installation stuck onto the sides of the concrete monoliths which may actually have had the effect of drawing attention to the Orwellian architecture behind.

Indeed the only locations which actually seemed to suffer where those where the buildings or infrastructures were already in place and unable to be adapted: the football stadiums had didn't really have anywhere to put the security, or to cope with people waiting outside whilst the stadium empties: they haven't had to deal with security or short turn-around times before.

For the one-way systems, the transport infrastructure is key. Whilst the Underground stations are a system of interconnecting tunnels, certainly with the recently remodelled stations everything is done to ensure that the passengers entering the system don't encounter those passengers exiting. Even down to the simple placement of signage.

Ah yes, the pink signage.

It was everywhere, wasn't it? Inside all the stadia, all around the holding zones, all across the transport network, everywhere. Indeed you could hardly tell that the beach volleyball stands were temporary, because the mass of scaffolding was enveloped in a wrap of pink and purple.

Gaudy, wasn't it?

Well, no. I know I've already mentioned in one of the previous posts about the unifying effect of the branding, but the pink was cunning. It needed to be bright, to be clear and to be noticeable. It also needed not to be confusing. A natural inclination would have been to brand the Olympics with the red, white and blue of the Union flag to show the London location. But there was already going to be more than enough of the red, white and blue around with the very patriotic Brits waving their flags.

And then there was another reason: the Underground. The Underground is already red, white and blue. You choose those colours for the Olympic directions and suddenly no-one can see them amongst the roundels or the red buses. You couldn't go for yellow, else everyone would have ended up on the Circle Line; nor District-Line green. So the palate was restricted.

And all of this assisted by the ever-amiable Gamesmakers; clad in Olympic Purple - again chosen because few other uniforms use purple, and probably because it wasn't too much of a headache when placed with the pink. You could barely move for them. Which was actually very useful. On these occasions 'swamping' isn't a problem. You know how many tickets have been sold, you know how many visitors you are expecting. It isn't like a wander around the DIY store on a quiet day where you can't move for people trying to help you; the only criticism that could ever be levelled in the circumstances would be “ there was never anyone to ask.”

Particularly when the volunteers are not only free, but oversubscribed.

Of course, all of this was organised a long, long time ago - even before the IOC awarded the games in 2005.

It really is a testament to Lord Coe and to LOCOG that these details were considered whilst compiling the bid. The park had to be planned, transportation detailed, costings and commerciality assessed, and contingencies planned. All this was pretty near finalised, waiting on the nod and a few Acts of Parliament.

Goodness only knows what would have been done if it had rained!

Even the hype-building was well orchestrated. When the torch relay started, I wondered how effective it was going to be. An 8000 mile, 70 day build-up? It all seemed a bit much. But it was surprising how effective it was. The fact it passed within around 10 miles of 90% of the population meant it even managed to whip up excitement in the most hardly of refusenik.

Indeed it seems as though the only operational, organisational failings occurred either a long time ago; or outside of the hands of the organisers.

Yes, it is the ticketing.

The public ballot had the effect of excluding a lot of grass-roots supporters, who couldn't commit to bidding for lots of tickets, and therefore considerably reduced the chance of even getting one ticket. This is because payment was taken without any further communication - you only knew if you had tickets if the £20 or the £2012 disappeared from your account. And even then you didn't know quite what the tickets were for. People were ending up in thousands of pounds of debt, and only able to resell the unwanted tickets months later once the official resale portal opened. With the time-scale for ticketing such as it was it seems unbelievable that no-one thought to allocate tickets to the 'winners', allowing them to pay for the tickets they chose, and re-ballot for the unaccepted tickets a while later.

Even during the games the ticketing site took its fair share of criticisms. Events would show up with no available tickets despite you selecting 'show only available events'. Or they would show up with tickets available, then not let you put them in your basket. And if you did manage to get them in your basket, you had to wait up 20 minutes or so before being told that, actually, your selected tickets were no longer available.

But if you got them, then, clutching those very expensive tickets, you turned up to half-empty stadia. Or at least that is what you would believe if you listened to the press. Of course, it wasn't so. But the allocations for the organisers and other National Olympic Committees could have been handled slightly better. Unfortunately a lot of this was in the hands of the IOC requirements, and not under the control of LOCOG, but not all.

And finally, a word from our sponsors...

Did you notice them?

Probably not a vast amount during the actual events: the regulations state that there is to be no advertising - even of the official partners - within the stadia. This lead to the rather amusing sight of seeing the name of the manufacturer of the hand-dryers in the toilets being covered with tape. Becoming an Olympic partner isn't about getting that sort of access. It is about being permitted association with the Olympic brand.

So LloydsTSB had the 2012 logo in all of their branches which also distributed flags and paraphernalia along the torch relay route.

BA was widely praised for the message it put out with its association. Very British, very self-deprecating and very tongue-in-cheek humour: it told you not to fly with BA. It worked marvellously. It wasn't a case of fly with someone else, it was “don't fly at all”: stay home, support team GB. What should have been commercial suicide was a marketing masterpiece. And, of course, it coupled it with one of its typical 'epic' adverts, with a plane taxiing through London. Marketing these days can't be done without the viral element, so using their website, Facebook and various other means, you could take control of the plane and watch it taxi down your street. A nice bit of novelty, and certainly not detracting from the campaign as a whole.

I've discussed some of the advertising previously though the concerns about people being asked to take off Nike-branded t-shirts never played out after the official guidance was issued with a very common sense approach.

And that was, in turn, heeded to a great extent in the lack of ambush marketing. I've talked about the Summer of Sport, like I say, and aside from a few more sports clothing adverts dotted around; almost nothing attempted to get close to an unofficial association. Well, unless Jagermeister had sponsored the Dutch contingent. Or, perhaps, Beats By Dre - the headphones that many of the athletes wore, though the proportion wearing them didn't seem that dissimilar to the proportion of the general public that I see on train station platforms. They just happen to be the fashion of the moment.

One notable 'miss' - actually more of an own goal - was Visa. Yes, one of the benefits of being an official Olympic partner is the exclusivity that is offered. For those who haven't read the other articles around, sponsoring the Olympics never used to obtain exclusivity, meaning that the IOC had many more deals, though much less profitable. Now, unless you are the official burger supplier to the Olympic games, you don't get a look in with your burger van anywhere near the Olympic park. This lead to a few curiosities, such as the signs that went up telling staff members at various locations that because of the exclusive deal the IOC had with McDonalds, the only other chips that could be sold had to be sold with fish (a specific exemption in light of the national dish).

Now, I'm not sure about you, but when I apply for a credit card I am looking at the rate that is offered, or the cashback or other benefits. I barely bat an eyelid at whether it is Visa or Mastercard. But Visa have the exclusive deal with the Olympics, meaning that you can only pay on a Visa card. Or with cash, obviously, although the cash machines within the venue areas were turned off because they were not 'official providers of cash to the Olympics'. Well, not quite, but they weren't Visa ATMs so they did get turned off.

I don't know if the marketing guru that thought the slogan up had seen the Jubilee stuff going on, or if they were specifically told 'you have to make Visa look proud', but they came up with the marketing plan “Proud to Only Accept Visa”. How can you be proud to only accept Visa? It's a contradiction, and it fell flat on its face, being very broadly criticised. Obviously if I don't want a McDonalds there are still a few other fooderies around that I can buy a fish and chips at; and Coca Cola own so many brands that I'm not spoilt for choice; but if I don't have a Visa card? Then you're stuffed. And probably not feeling their warm glow of pride, less so when the system crashed. It may actually have done more harm than good.

Coca Cola seemed to miss the beat a bit, with its 'Celebrate Britain's Beat'. It seemed entirely disassociated to the sport. I originally thought they had made a typo, and it should have been 'Celebrate Britain's Best', but I'm not sure - the billboards seemed to make a speaker out of concentric circles which - only on further inspection - turned out to be in the colours of the Olympic rings. And who is thinking about music when your team is winning gold medals? I don't know if the television adverts tied the campaign in any better, but I didn't see them because the Olympics were on the BBC who don't have adverts on.

Adidas did brilliantly. It helped that the various sporting outfits of Team GB were actually quite amazing, yet so stylishly simple. But Adidas had put a lot of thought into the campaign. Evocative television adverts, with a building nervousness and yet a simple sense of pride; a very simple, clear, across-the-board message: “Take the Stage”, the adverts didn't need to do anything more, they didn't need to explain anything. Whether you were already into your sports, or simply associated with the various different cultures featured in the adverts, you felt part of it. And it got better still: what do you do when you've taken the stage? You “Take the Crown”, nicely tie-up the campaign with a lovely, properly 'proud' message celebrating the achievements. And then a couple of fun videos showing the athletes letting their hair down and enjoying their achievements. And it didn't just work locally to the UK either.

Yes, there was a bit of criticism about the likes of McDonalds, Heineken, Cadbury and Coca Cola being associated with a sporting event; but there have to be snack, drink and beer providers within the venues, and they are always going to want to be associated with the Olympic brand, so really they are a natural fit - so long as they get across the right message in the most interesting and effective manner.

But then again that is just marketing!

I don't intend covering the Paralympics, mostly because I have already covered off most - if not all - of the aspects with the last few posts, although if there is anything particularly different or note-worthy I will try to do a post on it, time permitting.