Michael Phelps is the most discussed olympian, at least according to Nielsen Online who is tracking discussion about Olympic athletes on message boards and blogs. I don’t doubt it. In Korea last week during conversations with colleagues, cabbies and folks in the elevator America + Olympics = Michael Phelps. His distinctively spelled last name was very helpful in tuning in on the one key word of a Korean sentence since it was usually pronounced some variant of “(pause) Pee-ulps?”
Butin Korea Phelps was certainly not the most discussed olympian, he was just the famous American who edged out Park Tae-Hwan in the 200m freestyle. Park Tae-Hwan who won the first swimming medal for South Korea when he got the gold in the 400m freestyle was everywhere in Korea last week and promises to be for quite awhile. If I’ve seen his winning race once I’ve seen it 1,000 times because it was everywhere. In restaurants, department stores, convenience stores, in cabs, on the subway, on cell phones. Koreans love their TV and were so proud of Park Tae-Hwan that he was everywhere.
The olympic experience in general was very different in Korea than here in the states. While the USA feasted on Phelps I saw none of that (except the 200m where he was the background to Park’s effort). But I did see lots of sports that I rarely do such as judo, handball, women’s archery (the bronze medal match between Yun Ok-Hee of South Korean and Kwon Un Sil of North Korea made for a riviting cab ride one afternoon), men’s archery, handball and badminton.
Whether Koreans are just as nationalistic in their Olympic coverage as Americans is not my point. Koreans are just interested in different aspects of the Olympics than Americans are and were I not there to witness it I probably wouldn’t have known about it. And that has to be kept in mind for all marketing. Patients are interested in different aspects of a new therapy than doctors are. Parents have different concerns about a disease state than their affected children. Consumers want different informations about a product than the company selling it. Different audiences have different interests and it is harder than you think to know what those interests are until you have spent some time getting to know each audience through research. It’s critical. Without it you are broadcasting the modern pentathlon in Korea and they really just don’t care….
Except for all of us who were at the Seoul Olympic Parktel last week when the Canadian’s, Portuguese, Brazilians, and Germans were staying there and training. Best of luck to you all!
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