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In the United States, only two of the 30 individual governing bodies for summer Olympic sports report no sponsorships. The national governing body for triathletes has 60 sponsors and suppliers, but is still actively searching for other corporations to partner with. "Enhance your brand image by positioning yourself with one of the most intriguing, exciting, fastest growing sports in the world," USA Triathlon posts on its website. "Many of our current partners view their relationship with USA Triathlon as a strong tool in their marketing platform. Aligning your product with a sports property as dynamic, driven and intense as triathlon brings a tiffany silver dimension to your brand."

USA Gymnastics is sponsored by Adidas, AT&T, Chevron, CoverGirl, Tyson and Gillette's Venus razor, among several others. U.S. Canoe & Kayak has AT&T, Nike and Time Warner Cable among its many sponsors.MARKETING IN CHINA

Any summer Olympics in 2008 would have generated an advertising spree, but the Beijing Games had a special attraction: the opportunity to appeal to the roughly 300 million middle-class Chinese consumers with significant disposable income. Companies worked hard to create commercials and advertisements with Chinese themes and sports metaphors that would appeal to these valuable Chinese consumers, as well as the growing faction of Chinese corporate consumers."Since announcing silver cufflinks Olympic Games partnership in 2005, GE has used the sponsorship to build brand awareness in China with key business audiences," states GE's fact sheet on its Olympic partnership. GE, a TOP partner, focused its advertising campaigns heavily on China and featured the now-iconic Bird's Nest stadium, as well as other Olympic imagery.

Johnson & Johnson, another TOP participant, played up Chinese history and heritage in its campaign, transporting five Terracotta Warrior statues from the city of Xi'an in Shaanxi province to its showcase pavilion in the center of the Olympic Green. To build brand silver rings among children, the company partnered with the BOCOG to initiate a Band-Aid Brand Olympic Education Campaign, which worked to teach Chinese students about the "values that define the Olympic Movement as well as health and wound care." The program distributed 800,000 sets of posters to elementary and secondary schools across China.

Many companies, such as Adidas and Volkswagen, chose to partner only with the BOCOG rather than the IOC. These companies only had Olympic marketing rights in China, not worldwide, but were still able to take full advantage of their access to Chinese consumers.

Adidas saturated the Chinese market with silver pendants and plans to have 6,300 stores in China by the end of the year in an attempt to surpass Nike in market share. The sportswear company launched a marketing campaign intended to invoke Chinese nationalism with the slogan, "Together in 2008, Impossible is Nothing." Advertising spots featured prominent Chinese athletes being assisted by average citizens to achieve greatness

A mid the marketing mania, consumer advocates raised concerns about the ability of junk food and alcohol companies to associate their brands with the Olympics. McDonald's and Coca-Cola are both TOP partners and deeply intertwined with official Olympic bodies. The companies heavily silver bracelets their Olympic connection both in the United States and abroad. Budweiser was a BOCOG partner and advertised its Olympic ties in China and through television spots during Olympic events.