The McCann Worldgroup agency created controversy last week by giving a lukewarm response to the London 2012 Olympics logo, designed by Wolff Olins, even though McCann is marketing the games worldwide.
In our “Judgment Call” section, we asked three experts for their take on how do you keep multiple teams working on the same project ‘on message’? And what are the key mistakes to be avoided?
I couldn’t help but think something had gone wrong in the management of this massively complicated, multiteam project. Surely someone at the London Organising Committee should have told McCann to just stick to a line – the logo is great and innovative in a way that the public don’t yet realise – to avoid reopening a controversy.
Earlier this year, for example, I met with one of the key Olympic sponsors who were proudly displaying the logo in their London office. Their take was a bit more nuanced: when it was first released, they said, they were a bit anxious but when Wolff Olins when through the various ways in which the logo was going to be used they began to think it was brilliant.
That, surely, was a better way of communicating the message. And one that didn’t suggest the reopening of a controversy that the Olympic organisers don’t need.
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