As the official partners spend a fortune on marketing and advertising, Opinium Research can reveal how this is all registering in the minds of consumers across the UK and whether, at the end of the day, it’s actually worth it.

Since January 2012, Opinium Research has been keeping a close eye on the brands benefitting most out of the London 2012 Olympics in terms of general awareness and last week, when the nation (a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults) was asked who they think are the official Olympics Games partners, Opinium Research found (See fig.1):

• Coca Cola and McDonalds continue to dominate as brand awareness surges
• Global giants British Airways, BT and BP show signs of decline in awareness
• P&G maintain its spot in the Top Ten after overtaking BMW last month

Opinium Research also found brands to still be mistaking brands as Olympic partners with interesting differences between the months of June and August: (top 5 highest ranked mentions)

• British Gas continues to mistakenly get the credit (See fig.2) & (See fig.3)
• Although EDF Energy pay big money to be an official partner, a quarter of Brits (27% in August) believe its rival British Gas is a partner (See fig.3)
• This month, less Brits mistake MasterCard, Virgin Atlantic, HSBC and Pepsi as official partners (See fig.3)