With Beijing Olympic Games wrapping up on August 24th, we have decided to make our own selection of the brands who won the sponsors race of 2 weeks long branding run.

Lenovo, designer of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch and Worldwide Partner of the Olympic Games, deserves the first place. By supplying high–quality computing hardware and technical support to the Games, Lenovo can take credit for the smooth operations of more than 30,000 pieces of computing equipment during the Games. Fully charged with the momentum, Lenovo is now planning to leverage the impact the Olympic Games will have on its brand globally.

We assign the second place to Lining, the biggest Chinese sportswear maker. He really made the coupe by being the final torchbearer on the opening ceremony, as we have previously reported on this blog.

The bronze medal should be given to GE. NBC, the GE-owned television network and holder of Olympic television rights in the United States, on Saturday night witnessed a stunning audience peak of 40 million people as these tuned in to watch Phelps win his eighth medal. 

Indeed, its industrial divisions sold $700 million of equipment to Olympics venues and other Beijing customers.

Next, the Dark Horse Prize goes to…Puma! By choosing to sponsor a five years ago unknown athlete - Usain Bolt – they got in return a three-time gold medal winner and world record holder in the 100- and 200-meter runs today. Puma has got quite a lot to capitalize on in terms of brand identity!

Last but not least the “China brand” is definitely the one that is going to see the best returns from this Olympics. The whole world has witnessed a modern and cutting edge technology expressing itself in amazing haul of gold medals. We bet this will come of some help in kicking over the “Made in china – cheap and low quality product” mockery!