Gentle giant or elitist bully? Intended and realised stakeholders' perceptions of the Olympic brand personality

This paper aims to investigate the congruence between the Olympic Games’ intended brand personality as presented by the International Olympic Committee and its realised brand personality as perceived by its stakeholders. For... [ view full abstract ]

This paper aims to investigate the congruence between the Olympic Games’ intended brand personality as presented by the International Olympic Committee and its realised brand personality as perceived by its stakeholders. For the purpose of the study, organisational documentation and existing literature were compared with collected data from 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews employing projective techniques and personification metaphors which were conducted with a variety of Olympic stakeholders. Findings suggest that there are discrepancies between the intended brand personality and the realised brand personality, possibly decreasing the strength of the Olympic brand. Based on the findings, it is suggested that realised brand personality can be improved by increasing transparency, carefully monitoring actions and communications and aligning these with the intended brand personality, and ensuring that all communications are credible. Future research should seek to represent more stakeholder groups to examine realised brand differences among them and also examine whether intended brand personality differs among various governing bodies with brand influence and control (IOC, NOCs, OCOGs and TOP Partners).