Yes­ter­day, the words, con­cepts and ideas were com­ing fast and fu­ri­ous as the pre­sen­ters on day one of the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (ANOC) Olympic Mar­ket­ing Sem­i­nar got un­der­way at the head­quar­ters of the Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (NOC) of Spain.

Manuel Par­ga, mar­ket­ing di­rec­tor of the Span­ish Olympic Com­mit­tee set the stage with his vi­brant and dy­nam­ic ar­tic­u­la­tion of what the Span­ish Olympic Com­mit­tee is do­ing to re­vi­talise it’s rev­enue stream while the NOCs of Botswana and Van­u­atu both shared their cre­ative mar­ket­ing ap­proach from a small na­tion per­spec­tive.

Rob­bert de Kock, pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the pow­er­ful World Fed­er­a­tion of Sport­ing Goods In­dus­try (WF­S­GI) was thought-pro­vok­ing and hon­est about the US$300 bil­lion sport­ing goods in­dus­try as he could pos­si­bly be. He urged par­tic­i­pants to think out of the box, don’t close the box.

He told the Olympic Com­mit­tee strate­gic mar­ket­ing de­ci­sion-mak­ers to be present and vi­su­al and seize the busi­ness de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties that avail­able from grass­roots to elite lev­el.

Fred­erique Mar­tin-Baste, IOC man­ag­er, Part­ner­ship Man­age­ment in the Mar­ket­ing de­part­ment shared an in­sight in­to the In­tel and IOC part­ner­ship and strat­e­gy while Reg­is Menoux, man­ag­er- Part­ner­ship mar­ket­ing gave a re­veal­ing ex­pla­na­tion of the think­ing be­hind the Olympic Part­ners (TOP). The TOP pro­gramme is the IOC flag­ship cor­po­rate part­ner pro­gramme and ac­ti­va­tion.

Natascha Trit­tis, IOC mar­ket­ing train­ing man­ag­er kept the day’s pro­ceed­ings en­gag­ing and it was hard to not be ful­ly mo­ti­vat­ed as she pro­vid­ed an Olympic fes­ti­val up­date.

Day two, this morn­ing will shift to the Olympic chan­nel head of­fice where the theme of the sem­i­nar will be “Sto­ry­telling as a pro­mo­tion­al tool”. Kathryn Davies, as­so­ciate di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for Proc­tor & Gam­ble (P&G) will ad­dress this top­ic with par­tic­i­pants al­so hav­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn about the Olympic chan­nel.

To­mor­row is the fi­nal day and the top­ics will be best prac­tices when work­ing with cor­po­rate part­ners and a re­view of the Olympic brand and ac­ti­va­tion guide­lines.

One of the high­lights was the Al­iba­ba Olympic ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paign, “The great­ness of small”.

Lit­tle changes pave the way for big changes. The key to mak­ing a big change is to make a small change first. Al­iba­ba con­veys the mes­sage that a small ac­tion can touch mil­lions of peo­ple. A small coun­try’s sto­ry can in­spire bil­lions of peo­ple. The pow­er of small from one to a bil­lion. Al­iba­ba claims to em­pow­er small coun­tries and youth around the world.

The great­ness of small, Team T&T (Team TTO), get­ting 10 or more Olympic Gold medals by the year 2024 #10golds24 can be pos­si­ble, by tak­ing one step at a time.