As an Historic Olympic Games Milestone Nears, the Architect of its Triumphant PR Campaign Reflects on its Lessons

Yahoo

24-06-2025

Rally International Public Affair's Mike Holtzman Was Named "PR Professional of the Year" for His Role in China's 2008 Games Bid
NEW YORK, June 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- When Beijing won the hosting rights for the 2008 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games on July 13, 2001, it was a pivotal moment not only for the Olympic movement but in China's development, signaling the country's growing stature and readiness to be a major global player.
Mike Holtzman, the architect behind the unlikely international public relations campaign that propelled China's historic win, was named "PR Professional of the Year" by PR Week Magazine in recognition of his sophisticated, globe-trotting strategy to build a new bridge between China and the world.
Today, Holtzman reflects on his game plan, and the long term-impact the Games have had on China, sport, and the world.
"At the time, there was a significant debate about whether the west should engage or isolate China, which was operating largely outside of global institutions and norms," said Holtzman. "I had just spent some time as an Advisor to the US Trade Ambassador helping anchor China to the west by joining the World Trade Organization, and the feeling was that hosting the Olympic Games would throw open a window on China, get them further bound to the rule of law, and on the track to modernization."
Holtzman, who now leads Rally International Public Affair's roster of international clients across the developing world, was a young executive with PR powerhouse Weber Shandwick when the Chinese, facing serious diplomatic headwinds to its nascent 2008 Olympic Games bid, came knocking. Beijing had lost a previous bid for the 2000 Games due to geopolitical factors.
"The Olympic Games are not about politics, but friendship. Still, a nation's bid does not exist in a vacuum," Holtzman said. "There needed to be this undertone that hosting the Olympics would somehow change China for the better. This would give IOC voters and critics a reason to champion the Chinese bid. Paris (another 2008 competitor) would always be Paris, but a vote for China could change history."
A team of professionals was assembled —including the global sport marketing team of Terrence Burns and George Hirthler, who were among the creative forces behind Atlanta's successful bid for the 1996 Games, plus sports branding specialist Jon Tibbs in the United Kingdom, to deliver this message of change to a skeptical global community.
"China was the second most populous country in the world and had never carried the torch of the Games. Tens of millions of young Chinese had never been imbued with the values of Olympism," Holtzman said. "This made a very compelling case to the International Olympic Committee."
When framed as an opportunity to spread and achieve the ideals of the Games and to modernize China, support for the bid grew, even among critics.
"When the Dalai Lama and Luciano Pavarotti both jumped on board, we knew we had a winning message," Holtzman laughs.
But what of the end game, where today's modernized China is now a global economic power and seen by some as a geopolitical competitor?
"The Olympic movement did its job. The Games helped open China and allow the world in. They served as a catalyst for lasting change in Beijing's physical infrastructure and environmental sustainability. The question today, as it was then, is, 'what will you do with this newfound goodwill and clout? How will you use it?' And that is a question for others to answer."
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SOURCE Rally International Public Affairs