Valley PR Blog

Pre-Olympic buzz or bust?

By Len Gutman on August 6th, 2008 In Hype!

You gotta love the Internet. The buzz around the sports world today, thanks in no small part to a mention on the Sports Illustrated home page, surrounds a pair of Brazilian sisters who compete in the “sport” of synchronized swimming.

The sisters were the lead story on today’s Extra Mustard Hot Clicks, an area on the SI Web site filled with stuff one expects to see on the E Network and TMZ. Now, I’m not one to look a gift babe in the mouth, so of course I flipped through the photos of these lovely young ladies. All of a sudden the Olympics had some appeal.

But being the crack journalist that I am, I went to the official site of the Beijing Games to get some more details about these athletic Ariels. And wouldn’t you know it — Brazil doesn’t even have a synchronized swimming team (here’s a list of the sports the country is actually participating in). Well, alas, I shall be forced to skip synchronized swimming once again as I glue myself to the TV for the next fortnight.

Really though, it’s not hard to imagine the folks at the International Olympic Committee or even the marketing wizards at NBC (which is advertising it’s going to show like three million hours of coverage) making this stuff up to increase interest. Because really, aside from Michael Phelps and the NBA versus the world, this is shaping up to be a pretty dull event. More people will tune in to see if the Chinese government will pull the plug on the cameras if its basketball team falls behind by 30 points.

Are men this gullible? Dumb question, of course we are! I bet the page hits for the photos of Brazilian synchronized swimming twins Bia and Branca Feres were off the charts (FYI guys, these photos may not be safe for work if you know what I mean).

Is it a good PR stunt? I imagine the ladies will get plenty of major offers from magazines around the world. So yes, if the PR job was to get exposure (ehem) for the girls, job well done. If it was some conspiracy to get more viewers for NBC…the jury is still out. I for one, was duly impressed by their…credentials.

Want Your Picture Icon? Go to gravatar.com and set a picture up to your email address for free. It also works on thousands of other websites, too!