Organizers of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games announced Monday a
call for a new slogan that will help present an exciting image of
the Games to a global audience.
"The collection of slogans will start from January 1," said
Zhang Ming, deputy director of the Culture and Ceremonies
Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic
Games (BOCOG).
"We welcome ideas from both home and abroad."
According to Zhang, the slogan should be easy to read and
remember and be understood and shared by people from different
cultures. The slogan, in both Chinese and English, should be
emotional and inspiring and visually strong.
Organizers have increasingly used the Olympic slogan as an
important platform to launch their communications campaigns. The
slogans from past Games, such as "Friends Forever" of the 1992
Barcelona Games, "Share the Spirit" of the 2000 Sydney Games and
"Light the Fire Within" of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games
have all caught people's imaginations and inspired millions around
the world.
"Welcome Home" also became a highlight during the Athens Games
this summer and was a source of boundless pride for Greeks.
The slogan Beijing used during its bid campaign was "New
Beijing, Great Olympics," which helped the world recognize that
Beijing, a city with a history of more than 3,000 years, is also
one of the world's fastest modernizing cities.
The new slogan will shift the focus from the city itself to the
three concepts of 2008 Games, namely Green Olympics, High-tech
Olympics and People's Olympics, and the universal values of the
Olympic movement, such as peace, unity, friendship, participation,
inspiration, dedication, joy and fair play.
The BOCOG will also invite experts in the Olympics, sociology,
sports, culture and languages to create some candidate slogans,
which will have the same selection standards.
The deadline is January 31, and all submissions can be mailed to
BOCOG's Culture and Ceremonies Department or sent via email to
wenhua@beijing-olympic.org.cn.
(China Daily December 28, 2004)