With the 2012 Olympics taking place in London – a city rich with history and abound with cultural landmarks, NBC Olympics wanted to find a way to bridge a uniquely British moment with current Olympics personalities, with the goal of both expanding the Olympics audience and celebrating a city that would host the Games for the third time. Abbey Road was this opportunity. In an effort to engage new fans with the spirit of the Games, NBC took the iconic Beatles album cover and gave it an Olympics spin, featuring 2012 athletes crossing Abbey Road in place of the Beatles, in 15 different iterations—all with minimal branding. To drive home the goal of reaching new audiences, NBC partnered with top infotainment websites – Rollingstone.com, EW.com and USAToday.com -- to seed this exclusive content a week prior to revealing all execution on NBC Olympics’ own channels. This brought cultural relevance and drove June 2012 Olympic Trials tune-in with exclusive, shareable placements on credible pop culture websites, resulting in 11.2 million impressions and more than 1,500 shares on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. On NBC Olympics’ Facebook, the images were shared more than 4,660 times.
Below are some links that further illustrate how the campaign was shared: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/u-s-olympic-hopefuls-pay-tribute-to-the-beatles-abbey-road-20120629 https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/218705145259765760 http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/06/27/olympic-gymnastic-trials/ http://pinterest.com/pin/255016397620514575/ http://content.usatoday.com/communities/popcandy/post/2012/06/exclusive-pic-the-olympics-hit-abbey-road/1#.USuiCsXA_cw http://instagram.com/p/Mn8YOeoNwr/ http://nbco.ly/126a8ez
