LONDON, UK — Where opportunity blooms, money bursts as business cruises. Yet, with today’s shepherd-less economy, it remains lost and rare. People, yesterday up for a breakthrough and success, are down and drained today. Frustrated at the continuous exit of fizzling and faltering earning-schemes, they flock to a distraction. While peeps nip their fingertips and watch sports, marketers with nimble fingertips see geese that lay golden eggs.
It arrives every two years; Flags fly. People fizz. Torches flaunt. Soon marketers begin hatching the eggs. However, where gold glows, all that glitters is gold, and some marketers decide to gold-coat their eggs. Nail-biting wait is over when the last torch rises. The games run for two weeks; the race is on not only for thousands of multi-national athletes but brand names. The latter is dashing into competition for strategic exposure one way or another.
Official Sponsors vs Ambush Marketers
Here are official Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola and Visa; big names with experiences go for legitimate angles to work on. On the opposite side are the others; equally experienced, guilty of hypocrisy, and going rogue. They deny association but secretly feed off of it. Everyone knows it. For a long time, it has come to the attention of the Olympic Games and host countries.
“Ambush Marketing” sells each time. In 1984, Kodak launched multiple campaigns and successfully won customers when in fact Fuji Film was the official sponsor. The 1996 Olympics witnessed Nike’s triumph over a then-official sponsor, Reebok in brand recognition after they effectively sneaked its billboard and village next to the athletes’ village. At the World Cup 2010, 36 Dutch fans were banned during a soccer match between Holland and Denmark. A Dutch brewery, Bavaria Beer dressed them orange. The official sponsor was Budweiser.
London Prepares
For the London 2012, the U.K. government wants to play it smart and safe. They seem assured of dodging ambush attacks; they are tying up loose ends so that ambushers cannot bust tricky moves. Any type of suspicious association is deemed a crime by law. Even, Twitter weighs in: tweet a parasite out of business.
Here below are the protected “Games marks”
- The Team GB logo
- The Paralympics GB logo
- The British Olympic Association logo
- The British Paralympic Association logo
- London2012.com (and various derivatives)
- The Olympic symbol
- The Paralympic symbol
- The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic emblems
- The words ‘London 2012’ and ‘2012’
- The words ‘Olympic’, ‘Olympiad’, ‘Olympian’ (also their plurals and things very similar to them – e.g. ‘Olympix’
- The words ‘Paralympic’, ‘Paralympiad’, ‘Paralympian’ and their plurals and things very similar to them – e.g. ‘Paralympix’
- The Olympic motto: ‘Citius Altius Fortius’ / ‘Faster Higher Stronger’
- The Paralympic motto: ‘Spirit in Motion’
It will be hard to tell the difference in practice as “ambush marketing” shares many grey areas with “official sponsorship”. Legal boundaries must be drawn with flexibility to succesfully screen out shady deals.
