Archive for the ‘games’ Category
BEIJING (Reuters) – Olympic sponsors are launching possibly the largest advertising and marketing campaign ever, aiming to etch their brands in the minds of a new generation of Chinese consumers for far beyond the upcoming Games.
The ads range from traditional print and TV to glitzy new on-line media, blanketing a vast country whose citizens place an extraordinarily high value on the Olympic ideal and presumably the companies that support it.
While the risk of a public relations backlash still looms as China finds itself at odds with much of the world on hot-button issues such as Tibet and Sudan, the hoped-for gains far outweigh any possible downside.
“On a global scale, I don’t think you are going to get this kind of investment again,” said Greg Paull, the head of R3, a Beijing-based media consultancy.
R3 — which counts sponsors Coca-Cola Co, Adidas, Yili and Lenovo Group as clients — says the benefits for companies will be enjoyed for years after the last athlete crosses the final finish line next month.
R3 reckons all advertisers in China will spend 19 percent more in 2008 than a year earlier to about $54.3 billion, for an “Olympic effect” of about $8.6 billion in additional spending.
In addition, Olympic sponsors alone will spend 21.8 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) this year, rising 52 percent from 2007, said Paull.
German sportswear maker Adidas, one of 11 national partners of the Beijing Games, is expecting its Olympic tieup to vault it past arch rival Nike Inc in the China market this year.
“Our marketing campaign for China is the largest we have ever done in a single country,” Erica Kerner, director of the Beijing Olympic program for Adidas, told Reuters.
“We see this as a marketing platform that will help us to achieve market leadership in China this year,” she said.
Adidas will use a 360-degree projection theatre to spread its “Together in 2008, Impossible is Nothing” slogan.
ECONOMICS TRUMPS POLITICS
Nike — which sponsors individual athletes and sports groups, but not the Olympics itself — is perhaps underestimating the fact that over 90 percent of Chinese view the Olympics, and companies associated with it, in a positive light.
China is the world’s fastest growing major economy and is seen by multinationals as a crucial market, success in which would give the winners a step up in the global battle for precious market share.
Adidas estimates China will become its second largest market after the United States by 2010, when its stores will grow to 6,300 from over 4,000 now, riding a sports and leisure boom.
But nothing in China comes easy, as Olympic backers found out earlier this year and again last month.
Organizers and sponsors of the Games were rattled when China’s harsh crackdown in Tibet touched off global anti-Chinese protests leading to talk of an Olympic boycott.
“That is a big challenge for all sponsors,” said Paull, the media consultant, referring to the political risks surrounding the Olympics.
“But it is also par for the course, part of doing business in this market,” said Paull.
Tibet is far from the only issue that could tarnish the Games for sponsors and China.
Beijing criticized the International Criminal Court last month after the court charged the president of key ally Sudan with genocide, adding to claims Beijing was only interested in protecting its oil investments in the poor African country.
Some Olympic athletes who have joined Team Darfur, an informal, 300-strong group created by former U.S. speed skater Joey Cheek to draw attention to Sudan, have said they may stage some form of protest while in Beijing.
The possibility foreign-based protestors or home-grown terrorists from Tibet or the restive region of Xinjiang could mar the Games, has prompted extraordinary security measures including emptying Beijing of migrant workers and tighter visa rules.
BIG BUSINESS
But the political backdrop is having little impact on advertisers who are taking advantage of the positive vibes to the pre-Olympic buildup in the capital. And cost is no object.
Coca-Cola is inviting 10,000 people to Beijing for the Games and will dazzle them with what is touted as the world’s largest overhead LCD screen, covering an entire outdoor plaza.
Half of Coke’s guest list are clients and employees from overseas, and another large contingent will be staff volunteers from China to help with its many hospitality events spread throughout Beijing.
“Our people are really excited to be here. It is a win-win,” said Christina Lau, Coke’s director of external affairs based in Beijing.
“We have selected employees who have demonstrated their passion and commitment to Coke and the Olympics,” she said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Olympic sponsors are launching possibly the largest advertising and marketing campaign ever, aiming to etch their brands in the minds of a new generation of Chinese consumers for far beyond the upcoming Games.
The ads range from traditional print and TV to glitzy new on-line media, blanketing a vast country whose citizens place an extraordinarily high value on the Olympic ideal and presumably the companies that support it.
While the risk of a public relations backlash still looms as China finds itself at odds with much of the world on hot-button issues such as Tibet and Sudan, the hoped-for gains far outweigh any possible downside.
“On a global scale, I don’t think you are going to get this kind of investment again,” said Greg Paull, the head of R3, a Beijing-based media consultancy.
R3 — which counts sponsors Coca-Cola Co, Adidas, Yili and Lenovo Group as clients — says the benefits for companies will be enjoyed for years after the last athlete crosses the final finish line next month.
R3 reckons all advertisers in China will spend 19 percent more in 2008 than a year earlier to about $54.3 billion, for an “Olympic effect” of about $8.6 billion in additional spending.
In addition, Olympic sponsors alone will spend 21.8 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) this year, rising 52 percent from 2007, said Paull.
German sportswear maker Adidas, one of 11 national partners of the Beijing Games, is expecting its Olympic tieup to vault it past arch rival Nike Inc in the China market this year.
“Our marketing campaign for China is the largest we have ever done in a single country,” Erica Kerner, director of the Beijing Olympic program for Adidas, told Reuters.
“We see this as a marketing platform that will help us to achieve market leadership in China this year,” she said.
Adidas will use a 360-degree projection theatre to spread its “Together in 2008, Impossible is Nothing” slogan.
ECONOMICS TRUMPS POLITICS
Nike — which sponsors individual athletes and sports groups, but not the Olympics itself — is perhaps underestimating the fact that over 90 percent of Chinese view the Olympics, and companies associated with it, in a positive light.
China is the world’s fastest growing major economy and is seen by multinationals as a crucial market, success in which would give the winners a step up in the global battle for precious market share.
Adidas estimates China will become its second largest market after the United States by 2010, when its stores will grow to 6,300 from over 4,000 now, riding a sports and leisure boom.
But nothing in China comes easy, as Olympic backers found out earlier this year and again last month.
Organizers and sponsors of the Games were rattled when China’s harsh crackdown in Tibet touched off global anti-Chinese protests leading to talk of an Olympic boycott.
“That is a big challenge for all sponsors,” said Paull, the media consultant, referring to the political risks surrounding the Olympics.
“But it is also par for the course, part of doing business in this market,” said Paull.
Tibet is far from the only issue that could tarnish the Games for sponsors and China.
Beijing criticized the International Criminal Court last month after the court charged the president of key ally Sudan with genocide, adding to claims Beijing was only interested in protecting its oil investments in the poor African country.
Some Olympic athletes who have joined Team Darfur, an informal, 300-strong group created by former U.S. speed skater Joey Cheek to draw attention to Sudan, have said they may stage some form of protest while in Beijing.
The possibility foreign-based protestors or home-grown terrorists from Tibet or the restive region of Xinjiang could mar the Games, has prompted extraordinary security measures including emptying Beijing of migrant workers and tighter visa rules.
BIG BUSINESS
But the political backdrop is having little impact on advertisers who are taking advantage of the positive vibes to the pre-Olympic buildup in the capital. And cost is no object.
Coca-Cola is inviting 10,000 people to Beijing for the Games and will dazzle them with what is touted as the world’s largest overhead LCD screen, covering an entire outdoor plaza.
Half of Coke’s guest list are clients and employees from overseas, and another large contingent will be staff volunteers from China to help with its many hospitality events spread throughout Beijing.
“Our people are really excited to be here. It is a win-win,” said Christina Lau, Coke’s director of external affairs based in Beijing.
“We have selected employees who have demonstrated their passion and commitment to Coke and the Olympics,” she said.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Olympic host Beijing saw hazy pollution lift on Tuesday, but a damning Amnesty International report brought into sharp view tensions over China’s human rights policies ten days before the Games begin.
With the 2008 Olympic Games due to open in the shining Bird’s Nest Stadium on August 8, the human rights group on Tuesday gave a scathing assessment of China’s record, saying many of its citizens’ protections and freedoms have shrunk, not expanded, in the seven years since Beijing won the right to hold the Games.
China had not honoured vows to improve rights that officials made in lobbying for the Games, and was not living up to commitments as an Olympic host, Amnesty International stated in the report released in Hong Kong.
“There has been no progress towards fulfilling these promises, only continued deterioration,” it said in the report, titled “The Olympics countdown – broken promises”.
“The authorities have used the Olympic Games as pretext to continue, and in some respects, intensify existing policies and practices which have led to serious and widespread violations of human rights,” it said in the report released in Hong Kong.
Amnesty said Chinese authorities had targetted human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers to “silence dissent” ahead of the Games, jailing dissidents such as prominent AIDS activist Hu Jia and often intimidating their families.
A Chinese government spokesman dismissed the Amnesty report as a product of habitual bias that ignored big improvements.
“This is a statement that anyone who knows China cannot agree with,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s chief spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference in Beijing. “I hope Amnesty International can take off the coloured glasses it has been wearing for years and look at China fairly and objectively.” Continued…
Miley Cyrus Thanks Fans At Disney Channel Games – News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News
Posted on: May 6, 2008
- In: Artist News | At | celebrity | channel | Disney | fans | games | Miley Cyrus | MTV News | Music | News Story | Thanks
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‘Hannah Montana’ star avoids questions about controversial pics by skipping down red carpet.
In her first major public appearance since near-topless photos, which were shot for Vanity Fair, stirred considerable debate among fans, parents and celebs like Madonna and Hilary Duff, “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus appeared Saturday night at the Disney Channel Games concert, held at Orlando, Florida’s Walt Disney World, and thanked her fans for their undying support.
“I hope you had an awesome time,” Cyrus was quoted as saying on People.com. The Disney moneymaker skipped her way down the event’s red carpet, seemingly to avoid questions about the photo scandal. “I saw a sign back there that said, ‘Miley, I’m praying for you.’ I could not be more appreciative. Thank you, guys, for all your support. Without you, none of this would be possible. I love every one of you, and I could not be more appreciative. God bless you.”
Cyrus’ set opened with “See You Again,” and later on, the star previewed two tracks — “Fly on the Wall” and “Breakout” — from her forthcoming, yet-untitled album, which hits stores July 22.
Other performers that took the stage Saturday included the Jonas Brothers, the Cheetah Girls and Jordan Pruitt.
But the fans weren’t the only ones backing Cyrus up. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana” co-star Jason Earles said she’s taking last week’s controversy in stride. “She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” he told the paper. “She’ll do everything to make sure she does right by her fans. It will be all right. I know what kind of person she is. She has a great heart.”
The recently opened Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport was designed and completed in record time for the Summer Olympics. It can handle 50 million passengers a year. More Photos >
BEIJING — Beijing airport’s new Terminal 3 — twice the size of the Pentagon — is the largest building in the world.
Adorned with the colors of imperial China and a roof that evokes the scales of a dragon, the massive glass- and steel-sheathed structure, designed by the renowned British architect Norman Foster, cost $3.8 billion and can handle more than 50 million passengers a year. The developers call it the “most advanced airport building in the world,” and say it was completed in less than four years, a timetable some believed impossible.
It opened in late February with little fanfare, but also without the kind of glitches that plagued the new $8.7 billion terminal at Heathrow in London, a project that took six years to complete.
This is the image China would like to project as it hosts the Olympic Games this summer — a confident rising power constructing dazzling monuments exemplifying its rapid progress and its audacious ambition.
While much of the world has focused on protests trailing the Olympic torch, China’s poor human rights record, its pollution, product safety and child labor scandals, workers here have been putting the finishing touches on one of the biggest building programs the world has ever seen.
Beijing hopes to overcome these negatives, and the dark sides of its roaring economy, by emphasizing its ability to upgrade and modernize, at least when it comes to buildings and infrastructure projects. The main Olympic stadium, nicknamed the Bird’s Nest, is already widely admired for its striking appearance and its use of an unusual steel mesh exterior. The nearby National Aquatics Center, known as the Water Cube, is a translucent blue bubble that glows in the dark.
And east of the main Olympic arenas, construction is winding down on the new headquarters of the country’s main state television network, China Central Television, or CCTV.
That $700 million building, designed by Rem Koolhaas, consists of two interlocking Z-shaped towers that rise 767 feet and may be the world’s largest and most expensive media headquarters.
New York has the Chrysler Building, Grand Central and the Guggenheim Museum; Paris has the Louvre and the Pompidou Center; now Beijing is determined to build its own architectural icons.
(Source: Rockstar Games)
Lawmaker calls for free, family-friendly wireless internet access open to the public; another auction required
With the internet littered with foul, explicit material, parents worry more and more about their children finding out what the internet fully has to offer. The solution, proposed by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), is to open up spectrum.
Eshoo proposed a new act on Monday, dubbed the Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act, instructing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to auction off 2155-2175MHz band of spectrum.
The winner of the auction of is required to use the spectrum to create free, nationwide wireless internet service that blocks all pornographic websites. It would be a service targeted directly towards families. Eshoo hopes the auctioning of the spectrum would attract types of national broadband service providers.
“The cost of broadband service is a barrier for too many families who want broadband, with more than 100 million Americans without broadband at home,” Eshoo said. “The results of the 700 MHz auction disappointed many of us who hoped that a new entrant would emerge. 70% of the spectrum auctioned went to only two carriers. While the auction required under this legislation is open to anyone, it is my hope that the bold conditions of requiring free, family friendly service will encourage the entry of a new kind of national broadband service provider.”
The two carriers Eshoo speaks of are Verizon and AT&T, already top-tier broadband carriers in the U.S.
- In: ESRB | games | Grand Theft Auto IV | Green-Lit | GTA | Ratings Boards | Release | Rockstar | VideoGamer
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GTA IV classified to contain “masturbation, fellatio and intercourse”
The roads leading to censorship are a funny thing. It goes without saying that Rockstar will push the boundaries of what is consider an “M” rated game with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.
In fact, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) seemingly has created new descriptors to define the content of the game. There is only so much room on the game packaging for ESRB info, so the board had to compress and combine the various descriptors it uses in its rating scheme.
Along with the “M” rating will be the description, “Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol, Blood, and Intense Violence.” Such concepts surely enrapture a 12-year old, but hopefully parents will be responsible for their children’s activities.
Taking a look back on Rockstar’s past high-profile game, one may wonder if GTA IV would be able to get past the BBFC, Britain’s classification board for media. The BBFC recently established a reputation for being strict on such content, denying the sale of Manhunt 2.
Pleasantly surprising GTA fans and Rockstar, the BBFC has cleared Grand Theft Auto IV for release, uncut. Perhaps even more surprising is Germany and Australia’s approval of the game. It almost appears as though Niko slipped the ratings boards’ bouncers a c-note to waltz right in.
On the topic of ratings, the BBFC’s classification offers a small preview of what mature gamers will be playing in GTA IV.
“Sex references also occur during cut scenes, including references to strong sexual behaviour,” states the BBFC classification, reported by VideoGamer. “During gameplay the character can pick up prostitutes… What follows is an un-detailed portrayal of masturbation, fellatio and intercourse. The character can also visit lap dancing clubs and request a private dance. While the game contains sexualised dancing and the portrayal of sex, there is no sexualised nudity.”
Sounds just like the GTA that fans have been long waiting for.
- In: Apple | Cellphones | games | Gaming | iphone | iPod | sdk | steve jobs
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Just four days after Apple announced that the beta version of the iPhone SDK would be available to developers, some 100,000 downloads have taken place. ‘Course, it’s not like we’re shocked by Cupertino’s latest horn tooting, but we’ve all ideas that number pales in comparison to the amount of requests for unlocks. Nevertheless, the real news from the Apple camp is that companies such as Namco and PopCap are apparently on board to bring titles such as Pac-man, Galaga, Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle to the iPod touch / iPhone via App Store. Furthermore, Six Apart’s CEO admitted that it’s already developing a “native iPhone application for TypePad,” and the VP of THQ Wireless implied that we’d be seeing some of its wares surface here as well. As for release dates? Your guess is as good as ours.
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