The Winter Olympics are right around the corner and that means one thing: network promos.
Due to exclusive carrying rights, it's not exactly a high-stakes competitive game. Viewers in the U.S. can tune to NBC. Viewers in the U.K. can tune to BBC. But that doesn't stop the networks from releasing ads to lure more and more viewers. And this year, we see two distinctly different approaches.
Basically, it can be boiled down to "make them care" vs. give them a scare.
NBC Sports Group CMO John Miller referred to the "make them care" strategy when describing the network's promotional blitz, which broke last year. "All the new spots in some way make you care about the Olympics. Or the athletes. Or some element of the whole Olympic feeling."
Meanwhile the BBC released a spot in which winter sounds like a downright, nasty element with half a mind to dash athletes all over a cold, icy mountainside. That the spot is voiced by Charles Dance, who plays the menacing Tywin Lannister in HBO's "Game of Thrones, only adds to the sinister tone.
Both spots are below. The question is, which do you think is better?
The BBC Spot:
One of NBC's promotional spots:
