Wong Wei Ming at
the Olympic Torch Relay

Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence is helping Lenovo leverage its Summer Olympics sponsorship with a far-reaching social media effort.

The campaign is called "Voices of the Olympic Games." 100 athletes, representing 30 sports and 25 countries, were encouraged to blog their experiences over the course of the event. Each was given a Lenovo computer and Flip camera as an incentive.

This year marks the first year athletes have been permitted to blog. Blogging Olympians are nonetheless forbidden from forming exclusive company agreements, and they may not post visual or audio material from the Beijing Games.

For the Lenovo campaign, athletes' blogs are available at a subsite called Summer Games. flickr photos, a del.icio.us stream, and blogs written by Ogilvy appear at a separate destination, Lenovo Blogs. A live Twitter feed will be updated throughout the seasons and promotions will appear on Facebook.

Federated Media, Citizen Sports and Intel agreed to sponsor the campaign.

This year marks the last year Lenovo will help sponsor the Olympics. In December 2007 it announced it would end its sponsorship four months after the Beijing games, citing cost as a factor. It was the second major sponsor to do so.

Image credit: Courtesy of Lenovo's flickr.