Learning from the Olympics

From GE to Nestlé to watchmaker Omega, companies use the Games to test-drive new ideas—and strut their stuff

Tony Law/Redux

By Reena Jana, Frederik Balfour and Oriana Schwindt

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Omega: This year, Omega, the official Olympic timekeeper since 1932, has linked the starting gun to loudspeakers at each starting block. That way, all the runners hear the "pop!" simultaneously.

ASK-TongFang: Tickets in Beijing are embedded with radio-frequency-identification chips, whose central database helps to prevent forgery and provide greater security Feng Li / Getty Images

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When U.S. Women's soccer defender Heather Mitts hits the field for the Olympics, she'll rely on more than her gear, teammates, and fans for support. Mitts suffered a torn ligament last year and had to sit out the World Cup in September. But she's back for the Beijing Games. And her confidence will no doubt be boosted by the knowledge that doctors are nearby, ready to scan her knee at the first signs of stress. They'll be using a compact ultrasound machine, the LOGIQ i from General Electric Healthcare (GE). The 12-pound device can produce detailed images of even the tiniest tears in her ligament—every bit as sharp as those from the 800-pound machines found in hospitals.

It's part of GE's strategy of using the Olympics to show off its latest innovations. GE deployed an earlier version of the LOGIQ i at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, giving researchers a chance to test-drive the equipment in a high-profile environment where extreme injuries often occur. Feedback from athletes and trainers, meanwhile, helped improve the machine. And just as important for GE, sales of its ultrasound equipment used for sports medicine have jumped 75% since Turin. "The Olympics are a huge marketing opportunity for GE," says Peter Foss, GE's Olympics sponsorship chief.

The Olympics have long been a showcase for cool athletic gear, from the ultralight Adidas track shoes worn at Tokyo in 1964 by German gold medalist Willi Holdorf to Nike's lightweight, moisture-wicking shirt worn by sprinter Kathy Freeman at Sydney in 2000. And the Beijing Games are no different. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James will sport Nike's (NKE) Hyperdunk basketball shoes, which feature a webbing of liquid-crystal fibers that are five times stronger than steel. Swimmer Michael Phelps may shave a few milliseconds off his times by wearing a sleek pair of goggles from Speedo. And a $25,000 bike, with a frame formed from a single, superstrong piece of carbon fiber, could give a boost to Australia's track cycling team.

But it's not just sporting goods and sportswear companies that use the Olympics to drive their innovation strategies. Companies from a host of industries—architecture, technology, food production, and more—have benefited from working with athletes or local Olympic organizing committees to develop fresh ideas. At the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics, the first to feature computerized scoring, IBM exhibited its mainframes behind a glass wall, hoping to impress business customers. Four years later, at the Winter Games in Innsbruck, Xerox showed off five of its newest photocopiers, which were used to run off copies of score sheets at the torrid pace of seven pages per minute.

Watchmaker Omega, the Games' official timekeeper since 1932, has long showcased new technologies at the Olympics, even if they have little to do with the timepieces that are the company's mainstay. Back in 1964, for example, Omega unveiled a system for superimposing athletes' times on a TV screen, a technique that became the norm in sports broadcasting. In Beijing, the company has introduced motion sensors (to spot false starts) and global positioning satellite systems (to track rowers). Omega says that showing off inventions from its R&D labs at the Games boosts its reputation for precision. "Timing a prestigious sporting event gives real credibility to our brand," says Stephen Urquhart, president of Omega Worldwide.

French-Chinese tech company ASK-TongFang has developed radio-frequency-identification chips for the Games, similar to technology that retailers worldwide are likely to use soon to track products from the factory floor all the way to the consumer's home. The Beijing organizing committee wanted to eliminate counterfeiting of tickets, so it hired ASK-TongFang to make tickets with tiny computer chips that can hold various bits of information.