In the December/January edition of SportsPro magazine, readers are given a fascinating insight into how Rio de Janeiro won the right to stage the 2016 Olympic Games. Writing exclusively for SportsPro, former International Olympic Committee (IOC) marketing director Michael Payne outlines the ten-point plan that, as a senior strategy advisor to the Rio bid, he developed with the Brazilian bid team which ultimately saw off Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid in October.

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An excerpt from Payne’s article follows. The full article can be found in the December/January edition of SportsPro.

“The ten-point list, developed back in the autumn of 2006, stood Rio in good stead over the three years of campaigning. However, for all the pretty pictures and emotional speeches, everyone knew this was first and foremost a marketing-sales campaign.

As in any marketing–sales campaign, step number one has always been to know your customer. Any good marketer will tell you that there is a world of difference between defining your customer and really knowing them in terms of what truly motivates them.

Rio developed a real familiarity with the electorate – taking time to understand what each member was looking for, how to address any real or perceived concerns they might have about Rio and what finally would truly engage them.

The Rio bid team had been building relationships with IOC members over a decade or more – able to walk into any Olympic room and work the floor, rather than just building initial awareness as to ‘who am I’.

It was a surprise to watch a real and legendary political machine so finely tuned and experienced as Chicago – who prided themselves, as no other US city, on their ability to manage elections, telling people how they are going to vote before they even approach the polling station – so totally miss the plot. As the 18-vote first round so clearly showed, Chicago totally failed at the very first rule of elections; they never really understood the electorate and how to communicate with them.

At the end of any campaign you also have to know how to close the sale, which, in the case of the Olympic pitch, was to answer the question why/what is in it for me? When it came to presentation time in Copenhagen, Rio focused on what electing Rio would do for the Olympic movement – opening up a new continent, engaging the 180 million youth of South America, showing that other countries could aspire to host the Olympic Games. Rio played the history card, and played it hard.

President Lula began to drive home the message with his remarks: “Among the countries that today compete to host the Olympic Games, we are the only one to have never had this honour. For others it will just be one more Games. For us, it will be an unparalleled opportunity. It will boost the self-esteem of Brazilians. It will consolidate recent achievements. It will inspire new ones.”

Lula continued: “The bid is not only ours. It is also South America’s bid…a continent that never hosted the Games. It is time to address this imbalance. For the Olympic movement, this decision will open a new and promising frontier…and it will also send a powerful message to the whole world: the Olympic Games belong to all peoples, to all continents, to all mankind.”

The other three bidders focused on what it would mean to them, the city – but it was unclear what it would really mean for the Olympic movement. Rio stuck to the basic principles of ‘branding’ – offering a clear point of differentiation from the other three cities in contention, and then clearly establishing Rio’s relevance to the IOC.

Nuzman and the Rio team knew from the outset that, whilst the process is technical, the decision is always emotional. An Olympic bid is increasingly a communications campaign and in the end people will vote for who they like best, who they believe in most, who they can trust and the Olympic context that can offer them something more than just another Games.

When the results of the vote came through, the world’s media were shocked. Shocked that Chicago had got it so wrong, and gone out in the first round. Shocked that Rio had won by such a large margin. However, they all agreed that the IOC had made the right decision, and that Rio had run a flawless campaign.”

The December/January edition of SportsPro also includes features on the business of sport in Russia, Ferrari’s retail empire, preparations for the Commonwealth Games in India and the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, as well as exclusive interviews with ATP chairman Adam Helfant, Eurosport chairman Laurent-Eric Le Lay, EA Sports president Peter Moore and New Jersey Nets chief executive Brett Yormark.