Real-Time Olympic Advertising

If you've been watching the Olympics, and judging by the ratings you have been (10% up over Beijing, 23% over Athens), then you've likely seen the AT&T commercials that integrate Olympic footage and results from THIS year. The process, created and managed by BBDO, can turn around the spots in 24 hours from the win. And with the US tape delay, it feels even more immediate.

Ultimately, they pull the winning footage and their post-house is on hand to place in the footage. That is all tagged with pre-canned footage of the hero writing down the winning times by the athlete. Which makes us wonder, how many 1/100ths of a second takes did they get to make sure they had all possible options?

AT&T also follows their commercials up with a branded YouTube channel that shares stories about their athletes (integrating their mobile use with apps, music and social channels of couse).

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShareATT

Go Advertising! Go Team USA!

Ratings numbers here: http://bit.ly/OFGce1