Olympic marketers pick up the pace

BEIJING — McDonald's brought out dancing girls, Ronald McDonald and U.S. gold medallist Carl Lewis on Thursday in a bid to hype its involvement in the Beijing Olympics, where corporate sponsors risk losing ground to ambush marketing. McDonald's is one of 12 global sponsors paying up to $100-million (U.S.) each to sponsor the Beijing Games and use the Olympics images and logos, hoping their links to the massive media event will pay off and help them snare China's 1.3 billion consumers. Mr. Lewis, who shares the Olympic record of nine career golds with three other athletes, smiled and cheered his way through a McDonald's burger-making contest topped with pounding pop music. “I eat McDonald's. I've always eaten McDonald's. I even worked at McDonald's. It was my first job,” Lewis, 47, who won nine Olympic gold medals before... [read full story]