The challenge:

The head of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, John Furlong, gave us a one-line brief: to give each and every Canadian a chance to be directly involved in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Specifically, the mission was to connect emotionally with Canadians and make these everybody’s Games. The vision we were developing would be applied to a cross-section of VANOC initiatives — from merchandising to ticketing to corporate rights management to sponsor recognition, and more.

Also, the rest of the world had to ‘get it’ right off the bat.

The idea:

In partnership with our Vancouver-based client and partner, we developed a long-term plan. Quite simply, we wanted an Olympic motto that would inspire all of our work.

The motto: Office walls were covered with pages of inspirational phrases and expressions about passion and fire and excitement and celebration. We played with them. We dissected phrases, using our brains as blenders. None of it seemed to connect until we looked at the national anthem. We started with See Thee Rise, a visual metaphor of Olympic proportions. We liked the feeling, the idea, but the words come from another era. We could lose our audience, at home and around the world.

And then we found ‘With glowing hearts.’

We tried to destroy it: Will Canadians get it? Will the world understand even if they don’t know the anthem? Does it connect us to an emotion? Is this the feeling the Olympics delivers, whether you’re first, last or stuck in the middle? Et est-ce que ça marche en français? Mais oui.

We decided to find an equally inspiring phrase in French rather than adapt the English. The words leapt off the page: Des plus brillants exploits. Literally, the most wonderful exploits. We tested it, right hand to left breast, and it worked. We okayed it with the Office de la Langue Française. The International Olympic Committee tested us as only the IOC can, and we received approval. We even group-tested it in Quebec City. And we created the first officially bilingual (French-English) Olympic slogan: With Glowing Hearts. Des plus brillants exploits.

The manifesto: We reached Canadians heroes — Olympic champions, a special forces soldier, a guardian of democracy and a composer who holds the Order of Canada. Inspired by their experiences and their support, we wrote the With Glowing Hearts Manifesto.

The plan:

We developed branding visions and materials for a number of VANOC’s most important divisions: ticketing, merchandising, corporate rights management and sponsor recognition.

-For merchandising, we developed Forever2010, a communications approach that reminds consumers that every single item they buy is a direct connection to Olympic memories.

-For corporate rights management we created Real2010 to remind consumers that authentic gear retains emotional value, as opposed to counter-fit crap that fades away.

-For Ticketing, we developed Legends2010 to connect people to magic of the Games: the best event to see sporting legends born.

-For Sponsor Recognition, we developed AllTogetherNow. We avoided the usual logo pizza and found a simple way to humanize sponsorship: happy people wearing t-shirts with logos.

Results:

With the Games coming in February 2010, VANOC has a non-disclosure rule that prevents us for revealing ticketing or merchandising sales statistics.

*NB: Bleublancrouge worked with the Hyphen Alliance and with VANOC’s internal team.