At The Practice, we can’t help but see the London Olympics as a perfect lesson in marketing. From brilliant BBC coverage, to sponsors, and to LOCOG’s promotion of London, all aspects of the Games have served to embrace public expectation, and in turn, have exceeded it.

So what have we learnt? That whether approaching from the angle of presenter, brand promoter or host city spokesperson, it’s crucial to get on the side of the consumer. For sponsors, this meant making the most of what British brands excel at; spontaneous creativity. For example, Adidas utilised innovative campaigns, and even surprised fans with their most lucrative asset, David Beckham, by having him appear at the Adidas Olympic photo booth in Westfield shopping centre. EDF Energy put on a spectacular display by illuminating the London Eye with a low-carbon lightshow every night, which entertained fans and proved that they truly provide the ‘Energy of the Nation’, as their campaign promoted.

However, we feel that one of the greatest mistakes was LOCOG’s rigidity and exceptionally pedantic clamp down on ambush marketing, and even innocent advertising from non-sponsors. While this was necessary to protect official Olympics sponsorship rights and costly investments, it didn’t bode well for public spirit, particularly in their approach to stopping local businesses from promoting any Olympics-related content.

We’ve learnt that future events shouldn’t be so restrictive if they want to maintain favour with consumers. For example, one of the greatest problems to arise in our opinion, was Visa’s stance with their slogan, ‘Proud to accept only Visa’, which, while obviously great for sponsor protectionism, only served to aggravate incoming spectators when it came to making purchases within the Olympic venues.

However, brands have learnt that aside from their own merits, our fabulous athletes are their most valuable ambassadors. For Royal Mail, a prime marketing moment arose when rower and gold medal winner, Katherine Copeland exclaimed to her partner Sophie Hosking: ‘We’ve won the Olympics; we’re going to be on a stamp!’

And in this, one of the greatest lessons we can take away, is to gain inspiration from our Olympic role models who exemplify the traditional notion of celebrity, rather than some of the manufactured pseudo-stars of today. Hopefully, brands will cash-in on these worthy figures to give our future generations a host of positive personalities to look up to. As Marketing Magazine’s Nicola Clark explains, the Olympics ‘will leave smart brands reappraising their reliance on over-pampered footballers to back the kind of heroes British consumers desperately need.’

Aside from brands and athletes, how has UK sport set a tone with the public? As a whole, the industry has seen a surge of interest with more low-profile sports receiving an increase in public response. Volleyball has proven to be a popular choice, with Volleyball England reporting that it had received 30 times more inquiries than usual, alongside an 850 per cent increase in traffic to its site over the Olympic period. Other lesser-known sports such as taekwondo and sailing also reported a significant growth in interest and have been keen to capitalise on this with new campaigns, national ‘taster’ and ‘have a go’ sessions, all aimed at perpetuating peaked interest in sports activity.

Did you revel in the spirit of the Olympics? And what would you like to see from brands at future events? We’d love to hear you opinions. Please have your say by tweeting to and following @PracticeDigital and on Facebook.