The 2012 Summer Olympics has 11 official sponsors, and many more companies are making a splash with their video advertising online relating to the event.

"Even if you aren’t an official sponsor of a 'tent-pole event,' you can still create, release, and/or package content that is themed around it," Greg Jarboe wrote in an August 7 ReelSEO article.

Case study: Nike
Making the most noise is the most recent line of internet video ads from Nike. Even though the sportswear company is not a sponsor of the London Games, it has still found a way to play off the global sporting event in its latest ad campaign.

The campaign, entitled "Find Your Greatness," features 20 videos playing off the theme that anyone can achieve Olympic-level greatness, not just top athletes. The primary spot is a one-minute video featuring a variety of sports clips from places with names derived from London. While the ad itself makes no mention of the Summer Olympics explicitly, by making overt references to the host city it is benefiting from the buzz inherent from a large global event, according to AdWeek. The primary video in the series had more than 4 million views and more than 6,500 Likes on YouTube after 14 days.

"The effort finds the global sports behemoth aligning itself with the 'little guy' just in time for a big-bucks de facto Olympics campaign," David Gianatasio wrote in a July 26 AdWeek article. "Nike's not an official sponsor, but seeks to 'subversively' ride the buzz of the London Games by focusing on everyday folks and local athletes of all ages and skill levels in less glamorous Londons—those in Ohio, Canada, Jamaica, Nigeria, Norway and elsewhere."

The video ad from the Nike campaign to generate the most buzz has been the jogger video. In that spot, an overweight resident of London, Ohio, runs on an empty road during the early morning. Within eight days of that online video ad being posted to YouTube, it had more than 800,000 views and more than 7,100 likes.

Case study: Adidas
While the sportswear company is an Olympic partner, it has still created a successful ad that plays off the sporting event without directly referencing it. In that internet video ad, Adidas invited shoppers in a mall in England to get their pictures taken wearing Great Britain-themed shirts. In the 89-second clip, soccer star David Beckham surprises a succession of unsuspecting Britons and takes a picture with them.

The online video ad has proven successful, with about 3 million views and about 12,000 Likes on YouTube within 15 days of it being posted there on July 24. The spot was one of the 20 most popular internet video ads in July, ReelSEO reported.