Selling and the Olympics--Spots Before Our Eyes

The Seoul Olympics: Who is selling what and whom?

You’re watching a relentless marketing of products, programs and people during the 179 1/2-hour marathon that NBC pretentiously titles “Games of the XXIV Olympiad.” A colleague’s perceptive 11-year-old son suggests a more accurate name:

“Games of the XXIV Commercials.”

Twenty-four about every five minutes. Or so it seems as you see Olympic coverage fragmented by a dizzying barrage of 30-second spots that each cost advertisers a reported $320,000 to place in prime time. And that assault doesn’t include the many commercials that are not labeled.

On the rosy side, some of the Olympic-tailored spots are so creative, poetic and startlingly beautiful that watching them, even repeatedly, is a pleasure. The best:

--Kodak’s filmy look at child athletes performing to music in slow motion as someone sings, “I see your true colors shining through. . . .”

--American Express’ lump-in-the-throat vignette about an elderly equestrian trainer who gets an unexpected chance to join his young rider in Seoul.

--Visa’s artful--if idealized--contrast of ancient and modern Seoul (“Today the wall is gone, and the world is welcome. . . .”).

They--along with McDonald’s endearingly funny musings about infants from various nations as future Olympians--epitomize film making and propaganda as art. And Joe Piscopo’s sniffy British fop for Lite Beer--” Pity . . . shuffleboard has been eliminated from the Olympic Games”--isn’t too shabby either.

However, these are merely the striking exceptions.

Credit NBC with refraining from jingoism and false hyping of United States athletes, even though the network has a large stake in the Seoul medal count. Despite knowing there’s a link between sustained viewer interest and how well the Americans perform, NBC has not unduly plugged U.S. Olympians.

Otherwise, however, the Olympic telecast’s Parade of Nations may be exceeded in length only by its Parade of Commercials--labeled and otherwise--the majority very wearing. In exploiting the enormous audience available to them via the Olympics, NBC and KNBC Channel 4 are taking no prisoners.

Examples:

--Endless promos for NBC and Channel 4 and their new series. By far the most grating of these is Ray Combs introducing himself--again and again and again--as the host of the new syndicated “Family Feud.” Knowing that ABC and KABC-TV Channel 7 engaged in the same practice during the 1984 Summer Olympics doesn’t diminish the displeasure this time around.

--Newscasts to promote the Olympics. This unholy practice surely comes under the unlabeled-commercial category.

What other tag applies when NBC has Tom Brokaw stand in front of the main stadium while anchoring the “Nightly News” from Seoul? And what other explanation is there for leading Monday’s “Nightly News” not with major events of the day, but with stories about Olympics diving and boxing? (NBC News did not do that when ABC telecast the Olympics.)

Greg Louganis’ quest for gold medals is surely interesting, but somewhat less significant than embattled Burma’s quest for survival.

As for KNBC, its now technically cleaner live newscasts from Seoul (at 9 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.) are more than merely an adjunct to the Olympics. They follow the Olympics, lead into the Olympics and, yes, are the Olympics.

Louganis is the gold medalist, but Channel 4’s news people are taking some of the biggest dives in Seoul--witness Monday’s 9:30 p.m. newscast, for example, when Olympic matters consumed all but about the first six minutes of the half hour.

--News anchors who are deployed in Seoul merely to showcase them in front of the Olympic-size audience.

That is why Channel 4’s anchors are there. (Was sloppy editing or Channel 4 salesmanship behind that shot of Jess Marlow shaking hands with Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley on the news before he interviewed him in Seoul?)

That is also why Brokaw is there, anchoring the news, doing news cut-ins and even voice-overs for some Olympic features. And if you weren’t impressed by those repeated promos showing Brokaw going “face-to-face” with world leaders, there he was on “The Nightly News”--”face-to-face” with the South Korean president in frequent “two shots” that equated the anchorman with the man he was interviewing.

--The exposure given other NBC stars via the Games. Much of this is unavoidable, and surely no one would dispute that Bryant Gumbel has done a superb job as NBC’s Olympics host. And Bob Costas has done nicely as late-night anchor.

But the exposure can only enhance the “Today” program that Gumbel co-hosts with Jane Pauley (who is also anchoring in Seoul, but as a superfluous third wheel beside the capable Gayle Gardner and Jimmy Cefalo). Another benefactor may be the new late-night talk show that Costas will resume hosting on NBC after the Olympics.

Meanwhile, there is also the inevitable marketing of athletes.

Just as tiny, toothy Mary Lou Retton became the signature of the 1984 Olympics--to be followed by her numerous commercial endorsements--so are Louganis and sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner destined to emerge from these Games as superstars with rich futures beyond athletics.

So with the lighting of the Olympic flame came the lighting and highlighting of many interests, some overtly advertised, others part of television’s frequent hidden agenda of self-promotion. The lyric from that Kodak commercial applies.

“I see your true colors shining through. . . .”