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If timing is everything, it's nowhere truer than in the chancy world of corporate sports sponsorship. Consider how, in 1988, the Olympic torch relay coincided perfectly with Petro-Canada's desperate need for public goodwill. The company's Olympic glassware campaign, tied to the relay, scored a public-relations gold medal. "We refer to it internally as our version of a 'TSN Turning Point,'" the play that determines the whole game, says Steven Keith, Petrocan's director of Olympic and community partnerships.

Two decades later, Petrocan is back selling glasses, but Royal Bank has assumed its role as arguably the most visible corporate sponsor of the Games. The two companies' efforts illustrate that sports sponsorship is not a simple matter of cutting a cheque: It requires the right moment and the right strategy as well.

Royal Bank is presenting sponsor of the torch relay with Coca-Cola, and the bank also has a history of solid support for hockey, freestyle skiing and snowboarding, from the grassroots to the Olympic level. "Everything we do is rolling up in some capacity to the torch relay, the Olympic Games and the Paralympics," says Jacqueline Ryan, the company's director of Olympic marketing.

Such words would have resonated at Petrocan, circa 1987. But what is the oil company accomplishing this time around? Even before Suncor got the oil patch gurgling with its bid for Petrocan in late March, it wasn't clear what Petrocan hoped to reap from its $62.5-million investment. "A smart sponsor will get into an Olympic sponsorship to achieve certain business objectives, such as brand-strengthening or repositioning, to increase sales or motivate and inspire its employees," says Garnet Nelson, managing partner of Altius Sport Marketing.

Petrocan had all those lofty aspirations in the 1980s. It had endured years as a bête noir, especially in the West, as the centrepiece of the Trudeau government's National Energy Program. The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary afforded a perfect fix. Rallying employees across the country, the company orchestrated the resoundingly successful torch relay. And everyone wanted the cool glasses with the Olympic logo. National pride overcame regional resentment, folks began piling into the newly minted Petrocan stations, and the company came away from the Games with the warm-and-fuzzies. "We still hear from people who have those glasses," Keith says.

This time, Petrocan is quietly dedicating $5.8 million to fund Own the Podium, the national initiative to maximize Canada's medal count, and its own program, Fueling Athlete and Coaching Excellence. The strategy spreads the money "a mile wide and an inch thick," according to one critic. The mission boils down to reinforcing Olympic identity by courting business partners and marketing glasses, with 50% of the proceeds going to the programs. A short-lived TV campaign this winter conjured 1988. But national unity isn't such an issue today, nor is Petrocan living the nightmare of the NEP. "We can't repeat '88, Keith admits. "There's nobody to compete with except ourselves."

Aside from gas station signage, Petrocan has planned little in the way of marketing, whereas RBC is expected to trumpet its presence on every avenue, using print, Web, radio and TV. Petrocan may have fallen prey to the syndrome that hampers sponsors who mistakenly assume that signing up with the organizing committee automatically delivers bang for the buck. "By securing a VANOC sponsorship, companies get a limited amount of recognition and marketing benefit, but the overwhelming majority of the benefit comes from what the company does itself to leverage its sponsorship," Nelson says. RBC, for its part, tested campaigns at the 2004 Athens and 2006 Turin Games, and is now designing a marketing blitz for next winter. "If you don't have the wherewithal to market, you shouldn't activate a sponsorship in the first place," Ryan says.

Whereas Petro-Canada earned a rightful place in the oil patch in '88, in 2010 RBC is attempting to distance itself from its Bay Street competitors with a message of hope, pointing to the future. "Build a better Canada, leave a legacy for the future" is the message Ryan repeats in drumbeat fashion in an interview. It's all about making a unified effort. Thus, for instance, the 13 winners of Hockey Canada's RBC-sponsored Local Hockey Leaders program are choosing teams this spring for the torch relay.

As a premier national partner with VANOC, RBC has committed $110 million, not counting marketing expenses. The company looks best-positioned among all sponsors to win—or lose—big in Vancouver. The snowboard and freestyle teams could combine for a double-digit medal haul. A gold medal in hockey would come at the conclusion of the Games— the ultimate triumph. RBC's dream is to see flag-waving from Victoria to St. John's, in all those communities where, incidentally, the torch would have passed through earlier (90% of Canadians live within 100 kilometres of the torch route).

The downside? That would be hiccups stemming from the daunting logistics of the relay: events in 187 communities in 106 days, starting on Oct. 30—trucks and runners and other assorted people all navigating a Canadian winter from coast-to-coast and back again, on a tight schedule, with the added challenge of setting up a promotional tent, energizing the local branches, and differentiating RBC's message from Coke's at each and every stop. Then, the hockey team could tank, the freestylers could tumble, the boarders could crash. And because the company has scattered its chips, there is a risk of "confusing the marketplace with too many offers, assets and messages," says Nelson. But if RBC generates even half the national goodwill realized by Petrocan in '88, company officers will be smiling all the way to the bank.