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Bell Canada’s consumer experience, dubbed the Ice Cube, leveraged gesture-based technology across its dozen or so video kiosks. Sensors detected somebody approaching and converted the screen to a Bell Canada logo. Once guests got within a few inches, the screen displayed a demo of how to activate one of three videos by holding your hand above sensors embedded into the top of the kiosk.

General Motors Canada is using the Winter Olympics to show off its full fleet, promote the upcoming launch of the eco-friendly Volt and drive leads. The automotive sponsor (associated with the Games since 1976) is using a combination of mass blitz and targeted touches to both blanket Vancouver and drive test-drives. The company, which donated some 4,600 vehicles to the Games (a mix of fuel-efficient makes and alternative fuel models), was instantly ubiquitous on the streets of Vancouver—there seemed to be more GM vehicles at the airport than there were taxis.

Taking over the USOC family program from now-departed sponsor Bank of America, the consumer product giant has turned a conference center on West Hastings Street into a “home away from home” for U.S. athletes and their families, in the process bringing to life nine of its top brands. Open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. each day, the pop-up experience serves as “a quiet oasis away from the chaos of the games for athletes and their families,” said Janet Fletcher, associate marketing director for the P&G Olympic Team, while giving EM a tour in Vancouver.

In what may be the fastest turnaround of an Olympic sponsorship deal ever, Procter & Gamble signed, sealed and then delivered its first-ever P&G Family Home in about 60 days.

When the Olympic flame on Feb. 12 lit the cauldron at BC Place Stadium, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, it symbolized peace, hope, inclusiveness, equality, joy and fraternity to viewers around the world. To Coca-Cola and RBC, presenting sponsors of the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay, the flame represented all that and more: the challenge of carrying it safely 45,000 kilometers across Canada for 106 days to more than 1,000 communities and touching more than 90 percent of the Canadian population along the way.