"I'm not an Olympian -- I don't have the talent," Matt protests. Plays a little tennis. Likes to ski. Always there in the stands (safely) cheering for his kids when they play sports. When he was growing up his parents had a condominium at a place in Northern Minnesota called Lutsen, home of Cindy Nelson, who won the Bronze Medal in downhill skiing in '76.

No, not a world class athlete. But a world-class marketer? On your mark, get set…go!

Matt went to Boston College, was a business major, graduated in 1979. Worked in Boston for two years in sales for Burroughs Computers. Then he went back to business school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with the intent of getting into brand management. First stop: Brand management at Quaker Oats.

He was cookin' at Quaker for about ten years, including an assignment as brand manager at Cap'n Crunch, at the time a flagship brand for Quaker Oats. Then director of marketing for Gatorade -- that's how he got going in the sports business. Be Like Mike. From there he went on to run the Olympics program for Sara Lee, responsible for their sponsorship and licensing during the '96 Games. And he spent seven years at Nike in a number of different marketing positions.

Then Norm Blake, at the time CEO, had visions of marketing and tapped Matt as the one to lead the USOC's transition into a world-class brand. Until Matt joined the organization in 1999, the USOC hadn't done much at all to build its brand. It was more of a sales organization than a marketing organization.

The job keeps him busy, yes it does. The challenges of adding ever more value to Olympic sponsorships. Of making sure that sponsors roll up into a consistent communication. Of maximizing the marketing value of star athletes. Of attracting and holding increasingly younger viewers. Of working out the best use of the Internet.

All those challenges under marketplace conditions that some would say is less than ideal for the Olympic Games when the torch sparks in Salt Lake City come February.



How did events of September 11th affect the marketing of the Olympic Games?

I believe the games and the Olympic movements are more necessary today than they were before 9/11 because I really believe the games can be part of the healing process for the United States. And by the way, you have to treat it -- the healing process -- as something other than a marketing opportunity. This is not about capitalizing on the marketing opportunities. It's about doing the right thing and being sensitive to the American public.

Like everyone else, we are really thinking through what and how we say things because we have to be sensitive to what the American public is going through. The patriotic dimension is even greater than it ever has been. We recently ran a full-page ad a couple of times in USA Today. It's a picture of two young women from the '98 Hockey Team wrapped in the flag and the copy reads, "The United States Olympic Team. We've never been so proud to represent America."

How do you make sure that the next generation of sports fans will be more interested in the Olympic Games than the last generation was?

That's a great question and an important charge for us. We have to think about the Olympic Games as a brand. A gentleman named Bud Greenspan has been the official Olympic filmmaker for about the last forty years. Bud has really been -- what I would call -- the Brand Manager of the Olympic brand. He has been the steward of it more than anyone in the United States and has done a tremendous job. Bud does the official film, which is called "Seventeen Days of Glory." His films are absolutely fantastic, a real connection and real insights into what the true values of the Olympic movement are all about.

Our charge, to answer your question, is how do we take and turn the Olympic Games from 17 Days of Glory into a 365-day-a-year movement? I say that for a couple of reasons. One, our brand is about values and ideals. If you understand that it's really about values and ideals, then we should be able to connect with consumers on a much more frequent basis and not limit ourselves to the 17 days of the games.

And second, to answer your question directly, we have to do that because we have to connect with the young people and bring them into the Olympic movement. I'm in my forties. I remember back to 1968 -- I remember Bob Beamon -- that was the first Olympic Games I remember. I remember John Carlos and Tommy Smith and what they did at the games and how important that was. At the time, I don't think I realized how important it was but afterwards I did.

That’s our charge, to get that message out and connect with the public, and specifically with the youth of today to make sure that they’re in the Olympic family of tomorrow.

What are some of the specific things you are doing to make sure that happens?

One thing is that we are working very closely with NBC because this is of great importance to them as well. NBC wants to make sure that it broadens its viewership to include a younger audience.

We've worked a lot with them in terms of imagery. The TV advertising that we’re doing is skewed much younger, and is about bringing new people into the movement -- not just reminding the older people that have already been in there. And we used humor in that advertising to attract young people.

Clearly, a big target for them and for us is eighteen to thirty-four. We really just need to focus on that group and even younger -- kids 12-18. Bringing kids, brining youth into the movement. Things like bringing the skeleton sled competition back will be really exciting. Lincoln DeWitt, who is ranked number one in the world, an American, hopefully has a good chance to win the Gold Medal in the skeleton.

Any other changes how the games are being marketed this time around?

Our sponsors are demanding more from us as a property. In years past, just saying you had the rights to the USA five rings was fine. Today it is no longer good enough for our sponsors. They want to know what else we are doing to add value. The sponsors want more marketing power and marketing muscle for their investment.

We have sixty-six sponsors and suppliers. The great news is we're a world class brand and fortunately our properties are associated with a lot of world class brands -- whether it's AT&T, Anheuser Busch, General Motors, Visa or Home Depot.

How exactly are you adding value for them?

Well, for example we sent out a program a few months ago called 'Think Olympic." It was a Web-based program that we sent out to our sponsors that was -- think of it as a human resources toolkit.

We had this big Olympic Web site that -- whether it was for internal employee meetings or sales rewards, or a whole host of other things -- there were a lot of different ways to activate your sponsorship internally. The response was great. That was an example of a value- added program that our sponsors had never seen before.

How do you coordinate the marketing efforts of the sponsors? How do you make the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

We're working harder than ever before to articulate our image and what it stands for. Matt Biespiel, who is our managing director of brand development, went out and met with about our twenty top sponsors and took them through all that work.

Our intent was not to tell the sponsors what to do, but rather to set the fairways for our image and then try to get the sponsors to play according to their own brand within those fairways.

That way, we have the sponsors all aggregating to a similar message, which is the idea that the U.S. Olympic Team is striving for the best. Our theme is, “It's not every four years; it's every day." It's the fact that our athletes are out there training and our athletes are demonstrating Olympic values and ideals every day, not just once every four years.

How did your experience as an Olympic sponsor affect your perspective now that you are on the other side of the desk?

Whenever you come from the customer side you have a lot more empathy for what the customer wants and needs and desires. So everything we're doing, we're trying to do from a sponsor perspective, not from our perspective. We've talked a lot in the organization about enthusiastically exceeding customer expectations. I come from a background where the customer is key. That's what we're trying to do in terms of working with our sponsors.

How do you measure the results of your marketing activities?

You can measure them both quantitatively and qualitatively. We talk about our objectives and I think they're similar to a lot of traditional objectives. Our objectives are to drive revenue and also build the brand. I think that's true for any major brand. You want to drive your revenue and you want to build your brand.

So, for example, if you develop promotions -- whether you're Coca Cola or Office Depot -- you want to see that those promotions produce a sales lift. And then as you do advertising, you want advertising to be lifting up and elevating your brand. Companies like Visa, for example, have done a really good job of tracking their Olympic sponsorship to determine what kind of impact it's having on their business in terms of brand awareness, transactions and other dimensions. They look at it to determine whether this is really a good investment for them.

Is there also a strong customer marketing dimension for the sponsors?

That's the beauty of the property. It's not single dimension. It's multi-dimensional. One company may really want to leverage the sponsorship internally. Another company may want to leverage the property with its dealers or distributors. Another company may want to associate themselves with the Olympic movement in the eyes of the consumer. Or they may do any combination of all of those things. The Olympics is really ideal for complex, multi-dimensional programs. The key is, you've got to customize the programs to the individual company's needs and objectives.

How about the Internet? What is your greatest insight into the Internet as a marketing medium?

We're like a lot of people in that we recognize that we need to leverage it moving forward and that it's going to be a bigger part of our mix in our connections with the consumer. But like most people today, I don't think we know to what extent or how it's all going to shake out.

We're not a big organization and we don't have a big marketing budget per se. So we are dabbling in the Internet in terms of doing some online promotions and advertising. We are trying to link up and get alliances with companies like Yahoo or eBay. We're trying to work with our sponsors in terms of driving people back and forth to our Web site from their Web sites. So, we're trying some different things to make sure that we don't get left behind. I don't think that we’ve unlocked it yet. But then again, I'm not sure how many people really have.