LONDON (Reuters) – Olympic partner Danone expects the sporting event to boost its sales in the short and long term as the French food group tweaks its products, invests in its brand and opens yoghurt kiosks in Paris, its chief executive said on Monday.

Several major French companies, from LVMH to Sanofi, have become partners of the Olympics for the first time this year, hoping to take advantage of the opportunities the event typically offers sponsors in terms of sales and visibility.

The 2024 Olympics are expected to generate more than €1.24 billion in sponsorship revenue. Sponsors rarely reveal how much they spend or how much money they hope to make from these deals.

“It will certainly be a short-term sales driver, but we believe it will also have a longer-term impact,” Danone Chief Executive Officer Antoine de Saint-Affrique told Reuters.

Danone, which declined to elaborate on the size of its deal, also told Reuters it supports France’s bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics, which could be held near its rainwater harvesting basin in Evian.

According to the maker of Activia yogurts, Evian water and Silk plant-based drinks, which will publish its first results after the Olympic Games in October, many products this summer will carry the Paris 2024 brand. The group will thus deploy four “fresh dairy product takeaway kiosks” at key Paris 2024 sites.

Danone’s Danette brand will be present at “Club France”, where French athletes will celebrate their medals, and in a temporary convenience store in the Olympic village.

However, the group failed to obtain permission to sell Evian bottled water at the event, which was granted to Coca-Cola, a long-time sponsor of the Olympics.

(Reporting by Richa Naidu, by Elena Smirnova, edited by Augustin Turpin)

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