Everyone wants to be like Mike…Michael Phelps that is.  He has women drooling, men envy him, and advertisers are begging to sponsor him.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics drew in a high percentage of women viewers.  Here at Callis, it was the women who were congregating in each other’s offices day after day to discuss the previous night’s events. OK, so the number of women at Callis nearly doubles that of the men, but we were intrigued. We fought our eyelids and gave up some sleep to see every perfect landing, knocked over hurdle, slow motion replay and national anthem that defined the ’08 Olympics.

The 2008 Olympics delivered something to every single person involved.  To us, it meant something new to talk about and, of course, sleep deprivation.  To the athletes it meant memories, lessons and rewards for their hard work over many years.

To companies that sponsored stellar athletes, such as Michael Phelps and Shawn Johnson, it meant money, baby!  Or did it?  Buzz in the advertising world is questioning whether sponsors capitalized on the potential money-making factors.  Did they do their homework and tailor their ads to appeal to the right target? Did they wait to do search ads after the interest of the whole shebang had subsided? In one major coup, Kellogg was able to sign Michael Phelps to appear on boxes of Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes, which means Michael will be one of the few Olympic medal winners to not grace a Wheaties box.