Torino Winter Olympics | Sporting Events | Sport Olympic Games 2006

Olympic Games
medals
February 13, 2006

The Winter Olympics are back. A quadrennial event that manages to be both worldly and cozy, the 20^th edition of the Winter Games meets in Torino, Italy, where Olympians will compete on Alpine snow, re-enact old traditions, create new friendships, sip hot wine, and dodge or court media coverage.

The Winter Olympics debuted in 1924, when teams from 16 nations met in Chamonix, France, in the spirit (if not the same weather) of the ancient Games. How does Torino’s website live up to the expectations of this strong brand?

A visit to Torino 2006 welcomes the visitor with a countdown to the Games. The site has a sober but modern design, and can be viewed in three languages: English, French, and Italian (today's lingua franca, the language of the modern Games' founders, and the language of the host city, respectively).

The website is undoubtedly designed for fast downloads and easy maintenance under heavy load. Many pictures are about 15 kilobytes in size, which is fairly large for this kind of website. However, there is usually only one such picture per page, keeping the total kilobytes downloaded at a reasonable level for slow dial-up modems. Everybody should therefore enjoy a comfortable browsing experience.

Unfortunately, for such a strong brand, the website is rather functional. It aims at providing information, and carries little emotion (in spite of the cheery, smiling cartoon characters displayed in different banners). Branding fundamentals would call for a better balance between the two to reinforce the brand positioning.

Torino 2006 does not lack for excellent material, however, from news, to weather, to photos , and tons of information in between; all are rather easily accessible.

Overall, the execution is excellent. However, the form is off, lacking in style or emotional connection. Therefore, sadly, we give a bronze to this competitor.

*Due to the constantly changing environment of websites, some reviews may no longer reflect the current website for this brand.


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