Scenes like this are being played out in almost every town and city across Canada each winter.
With the help of prolonged temperatures below freezing and the commitment of municipalities to create and maintain outdoor rinks such as this one found in Kingston, Ontario our kids are given a chance to skate as often as they want and rack up some serious hours on the ice. Perhaps our international success is in large part a result of the thousands of hours of played on these rinks. Maybe some kids even get in 10,000 hours; the pre-requisite for top level success in Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book “The Outliers“.
ON Jan.9th Vancouver’s recently elected mayor Gregor Robertson released a statement detailing the city’s obligations as a guarantor for the financing required to construct the 2010 Olympic Athlete’s Village, a 16 building LEED Gold certified community on the South East shores of False Creek.
The Olympic Village is a billion-dollar project, and the City’s on the hook for all of it.
To my great frustration, we can’t turn back the clock on the actions of the last Mayor and Council. We are financially and legally committed to complete this project.
Clouds loom over Olympic Village
2010 Tracker Comment: It seems as though we finally have transparency regarding the obligations of the city and it’s tax payers. We depend on our elected officials to provide full disclosure on the situation and options available. For those in a condemning mood of having to backstop what could be up to or more than $1B of development costs I think they should keep this situation within the context of what is happening around the world and in particular our neigbour to the south still ailing from a global financial crisis. Several Municipalities are going bankrupt after investing their reserves in subprime related debt and CDO’s, something we can be thankful isn’t the case here. Vancouver is about to showcase a new sustainable community other cities will look to as a guide for future urban planning, lets leverage this opportunity to grow.
There are currently 2 contests offering Canadians a chance to become 1 of 12,000 torch bearers for the 2010 Olympics. Torch relay sponsors Coca-Cola Canada and RBC have 9,000 of the 12,000 spots to give away with RBC’s current contest awarding 2,350 spots and Coke’s promising 676. Both contests are fairly simple but quite different:
Coke’s draw has two parts:
1) A random sweepstakes draw which can be re-entered daily with 6,760 winners being selected to advance to the “Essay Round”. (Coke is going for the come back every day for another entry so we can advertise to you approach but ties a daily trivia question to keep it interesting).
2) The Sweepstakes winners submit an essay of up to 220 words which will decide the torch bearers. The theme shall address Active Living and/or The Environment. Do the math and your essay will need to be in the 90th percentile to land your spot.
RBC’s contest is quite simple compared to Coke’s. It is a max 1 entry per person random draw, although the site format still requires the entrant to gain awareness and commit to improving Canada through some form of Active Living or helping of the Environment.
So Who Wins the Marketing Game?
From a marketing perspective these sponsors are ideal for reaching all demographics across the country. Surprsingly, RBC’s dedicated site has paid search and #1 ranking on google for “carry the torch 2010″ where Coke’s’ site doesn’t even rank on the 1st page. Also, RBC’s catchy TV spots showcased on TSN during the World Jr. Hockey Tournament hit the mark perfectly.
Coke’s site is pretty cool, but makes me feel like I need to join some type of Coke club and collect coins etc which I really don’t want to do. (am I showing my age)?
With the highly contested 2010 Olympic Ticket Lottery now over, VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games) has followed up with a banner ad campaign on Vancouver Sun’s web site reminding Olympic ticket hopefuls to “BE SURE YOUR OLYMPIC TICKETS COME FROM AN OFFICIAL SOURCE“. The Committee maintains their intention is to protect fans from buying counterfeit tickets which I imagine is partly true, but another, perhaps bigger motive of the ad blitz is to discourage the success of a secondary grey market from profiting off the public at inflated prices.
Right now VANOC has a few things working in its favour to get a jump start on the secondary market:
1. Tickets have been allocated more than a full year ahead of the events. The urgency is not there for a ticket buyer to get them immediately.
2. Hard copy tickets are not being issued and delivered until December 2009. Although the physical ticket is transferable once in someone’s hand, it is tougher to sell a ticket you won’t receive for 11 months. Various ticket brokers are currently working on legal contracts that will bind the seller to the sale once tickets are issued, but something tells me the legal work going on behind the deals on Craigslist holds little more than that a handshake.
3. Vanoc has openly stated that they will void any tickets that they learn to have been sold at a higher price than face value. This is absolutely ludicrous and I can’t see it being much more than verbal warfare against scalping. Are they going to hire ticket narc’s to pretend to buy tickets at a higher price and then void them? This borders on insanity, but shows the lengths they are willing to go in deterring a scalper’s market.
At www.2010tracker.com we are monitoring the market for 2010 Olympic Tickets and will report regularly as well as offer insight and comparisons on the various ticket brokers for sellers and buyers.
Let the games begin. Well, in 407 days, 29 minutes and 2 seconds according to the official Omega 2010 Winter Olympics Countdown Clock. If you happen to be running Windows Vista or Mac OS you can also download your very own desktop widget to count down the opening ceremony on Feb.12, 2010. How about a Linux version? Omega has been an IOC official timer since the 1932 games in L.A. An alternative to the Omega desktop widget is CBC’s widget/plugin which we prefer as it can easily be embedded into a site.
