With the opening of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games just days away, Brazilian networks Globo, SporTV and Record are using creative pieces focused on achievement and self-improvement to drive viewers’ passion for sports, and inspire them to push themselves beyond their own limits.

Globo’s campaign, based on the slogan Somos Todos Olímpicos (We Are All Olympic), embraces a concept that Creative Director Mariana Sá says “aims to get Brazilians involved with the Olympic spirit, the overcoming of limits, the motivation, the dedication and the fulfillment of dreams.”

Somos Todos Olímpicos works as a two-way path: just as athletes encourage their followers to fight and conquer their dreams, followers encourage athletes to give the best of themselves until crossing the finish line.

In some on-air pieces the slogan is turned into a dynamic logo, in which an athlete jumps above the year 2016.

“It refers to the athletes and to the sports disciplines of the Olympics, and to how movement is part of the life of the athletes, of ordinary people and of Globo,—which is always in motion to accompany life, the world and people,” Sá says.

The concept Somos Todos Olímpicos has also been used on air promos and clips produced by Globo’s programming department. Those materials are made specifically to promote each competition and sports broadcasted on Globo´s programming or to highlight coverage details, like the film below. “On cross platforms events, such as Olympic Games, as soon as the communication department delivers graphics and sound, the programming department creates all on air promos and clips. Dozens of them contemplate every phase of the games, every sport and every transmission made by Globo,” says Chico Leao, promo director at Globo´s programming department.

The logo color display represents the cultural features and the diversity of countries involved in the event. The idea resulted from the colors of the Olympic rings, which originally represented all of the flags that participated in the first modern Olympic Games in 1912 and today are understood to represent the five continents.

“The message is that all countries are welcome,” says Sá. Likewise, the color gradient of the logo is also part of Globo’s visual identity.

Somos Todos Olímpicos has been used in several spots, such as the one below, which marked the countdown to the Games for an entire year. It shows amateur competitors training, inspired by the athletes of Globo’s Time de Ouro (Golden Team), as well as featuring a group of acclaimed former champions who will commentate the Games based on their expertise.

The piece uses lighting to evoke a nostalgic tone, and the heroes serve as the voice of Globo, demonstrating how their achievements can inspire amateurs to train hard and dream of going far, says Sá.

Globo also composed a song to accompany Somos Todos Olímpicos, with lyrics that speak to rising high in order to achieve dreams. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and iconic Brazilian musicians such as Zeca Pagodinho, Michel Teló, Carlinhos Brown and Ivete Sangalo all recorded versions of the anthem.

The Olympic spirit extends to other Globo promos, including one made to mark the beginning of the school year, “demonstrating that in education, as well as in sports, we need drive and dedication to overcome barriers,” says Sá.

Another promo was released to honor International Women’s Day, “reinforcing victories achieved by women every day.”

Another spot, Looping, showcases challenging moments that replay automatically after they come to an end, “proving that to succeed in sports and in life, we need to always be starting over, always in motion,” says Sá. She implies that the search for self-improvement is like a loop. Neither in it, nor in sport, nor in life is there an end.

For the first time, Globo will also offer its sports content on a social network through an exclusive partnership with mobile storytelling platform Snapchat to showcase content through Live Stories. It will include a curated collection of video and picture snaps posted by users, along with broadcast fragments from the games.

Andrea Doti, director of relations for Globo’s communication department, says “we are all united by the same concept of engaging and inspiring Brazilians with this incredible message of self-improvement and motivation that the Olympics leave us.”

SporTV is marketing the Olympic spirit through its slogan Somos Todos Campeões (We Are All Champions). Also, the song becomes a hashtag: #SomosTodosOlímpicos, incorporating tools from the Sala de Conversa control room that monitors interactions, engagement and public behavior across social networks.

“Our campaign for Rio 2016 aims to bring out the champion in everyone and make us believe that we can achieve [our dreams] through passion for sports,” says SporTV Marketing Director Bianca Maksud.

SporTV, along with the rest of the Globosat group, began its promotion campaign in March 2015. The first phase included four promos, each celebrating a great Olympian. They featured Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who won his second gold medal in the 100 meters in London 2012; judoka Sarah Menezes, who at the London Games became the first Brazilian woman to win a gold medal in the sport, even bringing one of the channel’s hosts to tears; Brazilian swimmer Cesar Cielo; and Brazilian long distance runner Vanderle Cordeiro.

These spots highlight what SporTV regards as Olympic values, “rousing in the viewer a desire to follow the coverage of SporTV through great stories,” says Maksud, because they “go beyond the sports world and bring to the surface essential values of people’s lives, such as courage, willingness to overcome obstacles and inspiration.”

In its latest promo, SporTV intends to create an emotional bond between the audience, the Olympic Games and the brand “with a remarkable sound track that clearly reflects our positioning,” she says.

For social platforms, the channel divided its campaign into three pillars: idols, in which the great names of the Olympics are celebrated; expectation, featuring profiles of rising athletes; and service, in which programming information will be updated via a medals table.

Record also created a special campaign for the games with the slogan Olímpiadas, tem que ter Record (Olympics must have Record), using only an audio voice over with no logo or slogan for TV pieces.

Marcelo Caetano, programming director of Rede Record, is confident that the presence of the Record brand in major events emphasizes the audience’s awareness and “reinforces the perception of the public and that this slogan helps to create this connection.”

Douglas Tavolaro, vice president of journalism of Record, says that, for strategic reasons, the concept of the campaign cannot be disclosed, although “we have adopted a concept of a channel focused on new trends, attentive to the transformations of society and of television as media.”

One of Record’s pieces draws upon the nature of athletes to illustrate the pursuit of goals.

“Our athletes are warriors by nature; they take the strength from the land, the energy from the air, the life from the water and the transformation from the fire,” a voice-over says. All of the elements are then supported by images that reinforce the motto—for instance, an athletic jump to symbolize air, or the Olympic torch to symbolize fire.

However, Alexandre Barbosa Machado de Souza, on-air creative promos coordinator of Rede Record, explains that the purpose of these promotions is not directly linked to the meaning of the four elements.

The golden light in the promos, for instance, “is used because the gold medal is the one most desired by competitors.”

Also, slow motion was used to “show the aesthetic value and the beauty of movement of the competitors.” To create the graphics, Rede Record incorporated 3D elements with the colors of Brazil and of the city of Rio de Janeiro, as seen in the bumpers (below). There, a dynamic semicircle surrounds all the titles and seems to represent the Olympic rings.

As the event draws near, Brazilian viewers await the arrival of the Olympic torch, as the games turn dreams into achievements and struggles into exceptional TV positioning.

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