1. The Brand Police really did stop at nothing
How many people honestly know what on earth 'fruit cup no.1' is? And if you do, would you spend £10 on it? (Well, sadly my wife did)
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| Any one for Fruit Cup No1? |
Independent stall holders at Eton Dorney cover up their 'highly contentious' names...
2. We need more wild flower meadows everywhere.
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| Wild flower meadow at the velodrome |
3. Advertising in an 'Olympic' station is an utter utter waste of money.
LOCOG did a great job with high visibility signage and hundreds of volunteers - especially at Stratford. The result was that everyone knew where they were going and no one even noticed the McDonald's advertising everywhere.
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| No time or space for McDonald's ads at Stratford Station |
Contrast that with Gillette who covered 3 tower blocks on the way to the venue itself - much more effective in gaining standout, and delivering huge impact.
4. The crowds really were fantastic as this wobbly video testifies
5. The military ought to run the airports
I underwent 3 security checks across my three visits, all fast, seamless, pleasant affairs - if only the military could take over airport security when they've finished at the Olympics.
6. The BBC was hit & miss
While their online and mobile offerings go from strength to strength, the prime time presenting and pundit teams leave a lot to be desired. The biggest criticism has to be the lack of expert breadth. If a presenter and pundit know nothing about a sport they would do better to say nothing at all and refer to a report, than engage in outdated, uninformed, pub chat. Two examples...
Gary: Do you think the final day conditions suited Ben Ainslie in the sailing?
Sean (ex hockey player): Well i don't know a thing about sailing but i think....
And even worse, following the Dressage success...
Gaby: So our first gold ever in dressage...
Steve Cram & Chris Boardman: Yeah but home advantage has played a big part for us there, not having to transport the horses to say Beijing, i presume that was a massive advantage.
Now i don't know a huge amount about dressage but then I'm not being paid to talk about it on BBC1. What i do know is that Germany have won the last 7 Olympic Dressage events.The last 7! Half of which were on the other side of the world, so credit where it's due - the Dressage team managed something unprecedented, regardless of the transport arrangements.
7. Empty seats can only be avoided when sponsorship contracts are agreed
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| Empty seats at the swimming |
Alright it wasn't quite as bad as that picture above suggests, we were there very early. But on that particular night, the night of the 100m freestyle final, there were a block of 20 seats left in front of us. Five minutes into the action around 40% were filled by guests of Lloyds Bank (according to their lanyards), the rest were wasted. It's not just Lloyds' fault. Games organisers need to wake up to two key issues. 1. If someone gets something for free, they value it less than someone that paid a tenner, or £95 quid for the same thing. 2. If a company spends £100m sponsoring a global event, they want value for money, and for them that means (among other things) quantity of tickets. More, more, more, despite the fact that a decent % of those extra tickets that they recieve will be for a morning session that no one wants to attend - especially when gifted them for free.
A further caveat to that, is that the IOC 'family' receive 50% more tickets than sponsors (12% versus 8%) which must amount to well over 1 million tickets - is that really necessary?
8. Coke & BP experiences looked impressive, albeit i decided not to queue for 45 minutes to experience them
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| BP park pavilion |
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| Coke's move to the beat pavillion |
9. The quality of merchandise was a bit of a let down, but that didn't stop the longest queue in the park forming.
10. The Orbit looks best at night time, when you can't really see it.
I know the LOCOG budget didn't put it there, and i do think the park needs the height of such a tower, it's just a shame that the Orbit looks like such a mess and by all accounts, doesn't provide a great view when you're up there due to the fully enclosed nature of the public areas.
The public viewing deck and access points are all you notice when you look at this structure, compared to say the Eiffel tower where they are neatly hidden away. Why has one of the World's most successful artists had to cave in to Health & Safety? If Danny got away with it regarding those sheep, surely Anish could have managed it for a structure that could be there for decades to come?
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