"Don't mess it up", was the advice a senior colleague gave to Ruairi O'Connell, head of the 2012 Olympics campaign at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) when GB's winning bid was announced.
For the 250-odd British embassies and missions around the world, hosting the Olympics was a chance to refresh people's understanding of the UK.
"What we're talking about when we talk about 'soft power' is no longer, if it ever was, the add on. It's the main event," says O'Connell.
A team of three to four people – often with no budget – were tasked with marshalling the creativity of diplomats around the world, and providing them with tools they could use locally for publicity and marketing events.
A live video conference was held to launch the campaign to the FCO's network. Two one-hour documentaries were commissioned and viewed by more than half a billion people. A team of six regional staff were recruited to co-ordinate all Olympic marketing locally and publicity ideas were adopted by embassies to mark critical points in the countdown to the opening ceremony.
"The biggest challenge was developing whole new skills in areas that the civil service hadn't got involved with before; understanding branding and marketing," says O'Connell. "What the campaign did was to give them permission to do something differently, and take risks."
