Organizers of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games announced yesterday a call for a new Olympic slogan that will help present an exciting image of the Beijing Games to a global audience.

"The collection of slogans will start from January 1, 2005," said Zhang Ming, deputy director of the Culture and Ceremonies Department of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG). "We welcome ideas from both home and abroad."

According to Zhang, the slogan should be easy to read and remember and be understood and shared by people from different cultures. The slogan, in both Chinese and English, should be emotional and inspiring and can be presented with strong visual effects.

Games organizers have increasingly used the Olympic slogan as an important platform to launch their communications campaigns. The slogans from past Games, such as "Friends Forever" of the 1992 Barcelona Games, "Share the Spirit" of the 2000 Sydney Games and "Light the Fire Within" of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games have all caught people's imaginations and inspired millions around the world.

"Welcome Home" also became a highlight during the Athens Games this summer and was a source of boundless pride for Greeks.

The slogan that Beijing used during its bid campaign was "New Beijing, Great Olympics," which has helped the world recognize that Beijing, a city with a history of more than 3,000 years, is also one of the world's fastest modernizing cities.

The new slogan will shift the focus from the city itself to the three concepts of 2008 Games, namely Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and People's Olympics, and the universal values of the Olympic Movement, such as peace, unity, friendship, participation, inspiration, dedication, joy and fair play.

The BOCOG will also invite experts in the Olympics, sociology, sports, culture and languages to create some candidate slogans, which will have the same selection standards.

The deadline is January 31, 2005. All submissions can be mailed to BOCOG's Culture and Ceremonies Department or sent via email to wenhua@beijing-olympic.org.cn.

(China Daily December 28, 2004)