While the world’s finest athletes fight for a spot on the podium, another battle is brewing behind-the-scenes as Olympic organizers enforce strict rules to protect the Games’ sponsors and official trademarks.
Approximately 250 “brand police” are out in full force around the streets of London – where the 2012 Summer Olympic Games are being held until Aug. 12 – forcing businesses to remove any reference to “Olympic,” “medals,” “2012” and the Olympic rings.
The rules, enforced by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and the Olympic Development Authority, have local businesses up in arms.
According to the Herald Sun, a long-established kebab house in East London was forced to change its name from Olympic to “Lympic.” A local butcher was asked to take down a display, which included sausage links in the form of the Olympic rings. Fines for breaking these brand rules are upwards of $31,000
Here’s the chatter on the Olympic brand police:
Esther Addley @ The Guardian
Victoria Pendleton will not be able to tweet about tucking into her Weetabix on the morning of race day, or post a video message to fans from her room in the athletes’ village. Pub landlords will be banned from posting signs reading: “Come and watch the London Games from our big screen!” Fans in the crowd won’t be allowed to upload snippets of the day’s action to YouTube – or even, potentially, to post their snaps from inside the Olympic Village on Facebook. And a crack team of branding “police”, the Games organisers Locog have acknowledged, will be checking every bathroom in every Olympic venue – with the power to remove or tape over manufacturers’ logos even on soap dispensers, wash basins and toilets.
Michael Payne, former IOC marketing director @ The Independent
“I have said to LOCOG and the IOC, ‘I think you’re scoring an own goal here. The controls and measures have gone too far when it is starting to suffocate local street traders. The public do get it. They do understand that Coca-Cola has paid, Pepsi hasn’t, so Coca-Cola should be entitled to provide the soft drinks, but what’s that got to do with a flaming torch baguette in a cafe?”
Martha Gill @ New Statesman
You can’t have chips at the Olympics, unless they’re McDonald’s chips, because McDonald’s now owns all the chips. As part of their sponsorship deal with LOCOG, the fast food company have apparently stipulated a chip monopoly. LOCOG have published a seemingly bona fide note to this end, saying that their catering team will only be serving chips if they fall within the fish and chips “loophole”. The note ends with a plea to customers not to abuse staff. To those protesting that the Olympics has been suffocated by sponsors, (wearing a t-shirt that features non-Olympics sponsors has recently been banned in the Olympic Park), this comes as a delicious nail in LOCOG’s coffin.
Adam Rendle, intellectual property and media lawyer @ NY Times
“The concept of association is very wide — wider than trademark analysis, where you need to prove there is confusion or another consequence of the association. Anything that looks like it’s attempting to free-ride on the Games, using Games imagery or anything that would create in the consumer’s mind the image of the Games, is at risk of creating an association.”
Spokesman for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) @ Reuters
“The rules apply to sponsors as much as to any other business. The ODA is employing around 250 specialist enforcement officers to do this in a reasonable and proportionate way… They are not there to enforce sponsors’ marketing deals but instead to ensure that regulations laid down by parliament are observed, rules that also apply to sponsors.”
IOC President Jacques Rogge @ Sports Illustrated
“Our position is very clear. We have to protect the sponsors because otherwise there is no sponsorship and without sponsorship there is no games. However, you have to be balanced and reasonable and I am sure that is going to be the case. LOCOG will have a very, I will say, subtle approach,” he said. “But if there is a blatant attempt at ambush marketing by another company or by a group of people with commercial views, then of course we will intervene.”
