POSTED: June 20th 2009
SpeakingUp
2016 bid cities ... what's next? Part I: Chicago and Madrid
LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications
LAUSANNE: The bid cities are leaving the Olympic capital pleased with the new process of the IOC member briefings and the overall reaction of the whole assembly. They all felt confident that it gave them the chance to get their bid messages across.
The four cities - Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo - bidding to host the summer 2016 Games have all refined extremely professional bids and taken the campaign to a new benchmark.
However, their presentations were of a technical nature and served a certain purpose meeting the needs of the IOC requisites. Next question is: once you have laid out your technical attributes with this substantial presentation, how do you create that last definitive compelling message about the city that will bring in those winning votes?
Many cities lack a crystal-clear vision of how they will present themselves for this final key presentation in Copenhagen for the actual vote for the summer Olympic Games.
They used their technical video and photographic backup this time around and will go back to the drawing board to create different and fresh new visions of their campaigns. To sway the IOC, they will have to come up with the most emotional high impact presentations that they can conceive.
This is especially important since the presentations and the actual vote will take place within 24 hours of the beginning of the meetings in Copenhagen. This is a huge challenge as there is not much time to lobby votes and presentations will be paramount.
The new process will set a precedent for Olympic bid campaigns and if the IOC adopts the use of such briefings for members in future, bid cities will have to gauge their key presentations to fit the need.
The briefings went well and the cities had much positive input following the phases of the presentations, questions and answers, then the member visits and finally feedback through the media.
One thing interesting to note was that all three of the bid cities had the presidents and secretaries general of their national Olympic committees in attendance except for the Chicago bid.
SportsFeatures.com asked each one about their impressions of the new briefings and the potential new process - and where do they go from here?
Chicago
Director of sport, venues and operations Doug Arnot: “We were extremely impressed with the IOC membership during this whole visit. They came with a lot of energy, interest and questions. We had 25 questions covering a breadth of issues.
“We thought it was an extremely valuable opportunity to talk about everything. There was a very apparent interest to get more information. With media off limits people felt much freer about asking questions.
“I think it was very healthy for them, it was healthy for us and will be good for whoever wins.
“We changed the visuals between the meetings as many of the members have never been to Chicago. We tried to bring them into the city.
“The dynamic for Copenhagen is going to be different, to inspire votes. The membership is going to arrive on one day and vote on the next.
“So there won’t be various days of lobbying and it has to be all about your presentation and you have to bring your message.
“I suspect that this meeting here was very important for establishing the voting points for Copenhagen. It will be about putting polish on it then.”
Madrid
Bid leader Mercedes Coghen: “I think it has been very useful. This has been a very good idea coming from the IOC, it has been very relaxed. I think in the future it is going to be very successful.
“For us in Singapore everything was colder when we bid the last time. I have to say I was very surprised at how many questions were asked this time around.
“There were many questions. The members gained confidence to ask questions and this was very good for us as we were able to give answers.
“We tried to answer all the subjects that the IOC asked for regarding our venues and the technical part of our plan.
“This was a technical presentation and but when we do the final one in Copenhagen we will adopt a different style as we won’t have so much time for a technical explanation. We’ll have different people there.
“All the bids are very equal on a professional level, we have heard from all the IOC members that the quality of the bids are very impressive.”
See part 2 on the Olympic Features page
Picture (above right): Doug Arnot explains the Chicago bid / lake images
Keywords · 2016 Games · Olympic Bids · Madrid 2016 · Chicago 2016
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