Olympic mascots and emblems: communicational and economical supports of the competition spirit

This paper propose to examine the message brought by the emblems and the mascots as symbols in communicational and marketing strategies by the managing committees of each Olympic Games.
Our purpose is to question ourselves about the choice that denotes not only the specific identity of each organizing city and country, but also about the connotation that those symbols hold. First of all, by entering them in a plan and in a marketing event process. Indeed, the passage from the Olympic poster to the mascots and the emblems is not limited at the modification of the advertising media, of a visual media to an actual element, which can be use in many ways. It concerns also the changing of the advertising function that can be divided in two points.
Firstly to functional elements related to the economic value of the mascot and the emblem. Secondly, and in another level, to the elements that determines this utilitarian value, such us the global meaning of the event, its universal value, but also the specificity of each competition.
Thereupon, we will try to point out the links between these symbols and the specificity of each competition by studying the mascots and the emblems of the Olympic Games of Moscow and of Los Angeles. Finally, we will focus our attention at the mascots and the emblem of the Olympic Games of 2004. We will analyze the relation between the chosen symbols and the communication policy of the executive committee, and in addition, how this communicational strategy is associated with the particularity of the cultural events before and during the Olympic Games.

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