Tibet Over the Sponsors of Beijing Olympic

          The long-lasting controversy between China and Tibet is breaking out again for the Olympic that will be held in China this summer. The Tibetan activists' main target is Coca-Cola, which is the co-sponsor of the Beijing Olympic torch relay. From Greece to Beijing, the torch will be passed through 21 different countries with more than 21,000 torchbearers by the opening ceremony. Including Coca-Cola, both Lenovo and Samsung are spending millions of dollars to sponsor the torch relay.
          But after the recent incident in Tibet where a great number of people was killed during anti-Chinese protest in March, despite of the sponsor company's effort for marketing, the corporate sponsors are being targeted for the blame.
          According to the article, Human Rights Watch issued a statement wishing that Samsung, Coke, and Lenovo to pressure the Chinese government for reopening Tibet and rearranging the path for the torch relay to avoid the region. Activists are not the only ones protesting Beijing Olympics, including French President Sarkozy and the U.S. President Bush are also showed their concern on the problem.
          The reason why Coca-Cola has been the major target of Tibetan activists is that Coke holds the most shares in sponsoring the relay, and therefore, the activists are pressuring them to remove their sponsorship and lobby the International Olympic Committee to rearrange its relay path that goes through Tibet and Mt. Everest.
          All the corporate sponsors have not directly made comment on it yet; however, they showed their willingness to support the relay since it's "...a unique opportunity to share the Olympic values of unity, pride, and inspiration with people all over the world." (BusinessWeek), and in fact, they are not to influence the politics in any ways.
          After reading the article, I could surely see that what it means by working through people within the market and how political or even social problems can affect firm's marketing and decision making. When two Korean girls were killed by a tank of Korea-based United States' Army, there was a big boycott in Korea not to buy any products, especially McDonald's. Since I wasn't in Korea at that time, I'm not sure why Koreans picked McDonald's as their main target or how it really affected the company either directly or indirectly. However, it was another good example how people react to certain problems and affect the management of firms even though they are totally not related. I can see how Coke, Lenovo, and Samsung are trying hard to sell their brand through sponsoring the Olympic relay, but I hope that they would also consider people who might use their products in the future, too.

Reference;
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2008/gb20080327_454941_page_2.htm

20601008 - 3rd Entry