The Brief
After having assisted the City of Lausanne and the State of Vaud to win their national bid against another Swiss city to be selected has a Swiss candidate, the city and the state again appointed our team of advisors to assist them in developing the international bid strategy and campaign for the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games.
Our Response
Over a period of 18 months, Lausanne 2020’s bid focused on one goal: to win a majority of the IOC members’ vote at its 128th Session in Kuala Lumpur. In pursuit of this, our advisors assisted Lausanne 2020 in developing a unique vision for the Youth Games. A vision that could clearly provide a real added value not only for the city of Lausanne, its region and Swiss sport, but also - and especially during that bid phase - for the Olympic Movement. But this vision could only be credible if Lausanne 2020 received strong political support. As such, our team assisted the bid team in developing a strategy to secure political support. This strategy resulted in the inclusion of local, regional and national political representatives in the bidding committee as well as the facilitation of regular meetings/workshops with all the concerned stakeholders. In parallel, an important communication plan was launched at the national level, as well as engaging with the public through e-newsletters, social media, creative brochures and press releases all carefully designed to communicate the key messages of the bid and engage the youth. As part of the innovation of the bid, our team engaged themselves in a community-based approach using social media to carry its message in a new, creative and interactive way. Finally, we developed the final presentation and worked together with the bid team in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the final days before the vote to ensure that it was executed in a thoughtful and yet impactful way. Lausanne 2020 won the right to host the 2020 Youth Olympic Games with 71 out of the 81 votes of the IOC Session, a historic result in the history of the IOC. Our team is now involved in a transition phase; helping Lausanne 2020 moving from being a successful candidate city to an extraordinary Winter Youth Olympic Games host city.
"Our team of advisors sat next to us for a lot of major decisions throughout the entire bid process. They have been an excellent sounding board, qualifying a lot of decisions with an external, well informed and interesting point of view. Their assistance has been key in our success."”