Global Keynote: Alex Balfour, Head of Digital, LOCOG (London 2012 Olympics)
Event Info
Description
Join us for a fireside chat with Alex Balfour, the at the centre of the digital delivery of the massively successful London Olympics and Paralympics Games. Opening this Sep’s Social Media Week and hear about the trials, tribulations and successes behind the digital success of the games.
Get the inside story on delivering the digital experience for the world’s best games (we have to say that, this is Social Media Week London and we’re allowed to be a little biased)
The phrase ‘the first social Olympics’ has become a favourite of pundits, comentators and over-keen marketers for at least the last 12 months. If anything, this was the first true digital Olympics combining social media, broadcast and second screen experiences.
The numbers are staggering: At LOCOG, Alex’s six years of work culminated in the delivery of 77 digital channels including london2012.com, volunteering, education, online shop, mobile apps and social media presences. During the 16 days of the Olympic Games London 2012 channels recorded 431m visits, 109m unique users, 15m app downloads, 4.73bn page views and 4.7m social followers.
Prior to his work on the London Olympics, he co-founded CricInfo.com from a raw start up into a profitable business with 20 million customers and 140 staff in eight countries. He raised £25 million in four funding rounds and generated £2m of profitable turnover making CricInfo the only independent sports dotcom to survive the boom and bust of the late 90s. CricInfo was sold to ESPN in the summer of 2007.
Speaker
- Alex Balfour, Head of New Media at London Organising Commitee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbalfour - @AlexBalfour2012
