Europe Day 9: Cathedral and University

Wednesday morning was on our own, so I woke up and went on my own back to the Lausanne Cathedral, where I paid two Francs to climb the Cathedral tower. Well worth the money and the climb. Fantastic view, and just a great peaceful feeling being alone in the cathedral. The tower itself was also quite impressive, especially considering the age in which it was constructed.














Had some cheese and crackers from the grocery store for lunch, then we went as a group to the University of Lausanne for two presentations. The first presentation from a professor at the university was on the structure of the Olympics and the IOC. Interesting presentation, but I think most of us had picked up most of the information through the course of the course so far.


Side note: during the break between presentations, we also found what seems to be the only bubbler / water fountain in the entire continent of Europe:


The second presentation was from a professor who was actually from the University of Ottawa, Canada, but was on sabbatical in Lausanne. His presentation was on the general topic of Olympic marketing, with an emphasis on "ambush marketing." Most of us had never heard of this concept, but it was actually quite fascinating. Much of the funding for the IOC comes from sponsors, specifically the 11 or so participants in the TOP sponsors program, such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola. Each of these sponsors has guaranteed exclusive marketing rights in a product category, for which rights they pay in the neighborhood of $100,000,000. After the $100 million licensing rights, each company usually spends 2-3 times that amount on activation of those rights, that is, actually doing marketing. Confusion arises when an athlete or team has their own sponsors which are not Olympic sponsors. Ambush marketing specifically happens when a company that has not paid to be an Olympic sponsor attempts to obtain some of the benefits of being an Olympic sponsor.

For instance, Subway ran a tv commercial with Michael Phelps swimming through the land towards Vancouver. The ad clearly was implying something about the Olympic games, but Subway did not have the rights to mention Vancouver, Olympic, Games, etc, so the ad very carefully just showed a map of Canada, and mentioned that Phelps was swimming "to where the action is." Does the ad give the appearance that Subway was an Olympic sponsor? Yes... Is that bad/deceptive? Possibly... Is it illegal? Actually, yes, in Canada during the Olympics, as Canada had passed a rather vague bill specifically to protect Olympic sponsors. Anyway, it was a fascinating topic and discussion.





We concluded our day with a group dinner at a cafeteria type restaurant, where I had a very large pizza made in front of me...
Craig handing out dinner money:



Dinner: