Marketing Blunders from that big sporting event going on in twenty twelve

Back in December last year we published a video in association with Keystone Law looking at marketing restrictions enforced by LOCOG around the official and associated brand sponsors. I’ve always had a strong personal interest in sports marketing so kept a close eye on developments in this area and attended a few seminars and webinars around the topic. The understanding that was always referred to was to ensure that brands did not claim any sort of association to the games if they were not an official sponsor. This referred to everything from key Olympic phrases such as ‘Olympic’, ‘London 2012’, ‘Gold, ‘Silver’, ‘Bronze’; imagery such as athletes, podiums, medals  to the use of official branding. With this in mind, us marketers have all been treading carefully to ensure that we do not wake the LOCOG branding police. At iCrossing we’ve even steered away from looking into specific Olympic related research papers following on from advice from professional bodies, but, as the games approached I’ve been interested in understanding the effect that these stringent guidelines have had on the event itself, as well as the public response.

Marketing Week reported last week on the Top Olympic branding breaches which included;

1. A mum who was banned from wearing her Help for Heroes wristband whilst participating in the Torch Relay through Rochester even though she raised over £8,000 for the charity after her son was badly injured in Iraq in 2007.
2. Traders in Tamworth were warned that they could not use the Olympic brand or associated words in the marketing of their businesses.
3. Café Olympic in Stratford was forced to rename to Café Lympic after he was told he could face legal action over the establishment’s name.
4. The Royals didn’t escape LOCOG either with the Duchess of Cambridge’s family investigated by LOCOG around claims that their company, ‘Party Pieces’, had infringed brand protection laws.
5. Bagels in the shape of the Olympic rings were removed from a Café in Camberwell as it was thought that they breached exclusivity laws.
6. School children taking part in the athlete’s parade for tonight’s Olympic ceremony have been ‘encouraged’ to wear Adidas or unbranded footwear or risk being turned away.
7. A Stoke Newington shop owner was forced to tear down their Games themed bunting hours before the torch relay went past his shop as they were deemed unofficial.
8. And finally, an 81 year old grandmother of 6 was ordered to withdraw a handmade doll’s jumper from sale at a church charity fete in Norfolk as it bore the Olympic Rings

Surely this is legislation gone mad, but they are all true! It’s even claimed that once inside the Olympic grounds you’ll only be able to withdraw money if you hold a Visa card. I thought they would have wanted the spectators to actually spend money…? Not to mention Lord Coe’s recommendations on ticket holder’s wardrobe choices.

I can’t help but think what the Olympics would be like if these laws were relaxed slightly? Whilst I completely understand brands wanted to maximise the return on their sponsorship spend, are we not simply restricting patriotism by limiting the public in general, independent shop owners and individuals, in publically displaying their support of the Team GB.  Union Jacks and Team GB flags lining the streets, the athletes publically backed by the Great British Public – the passion and emotion of the Jubilee for the entire period of the Olympic and Paralympic games…wouldn’t that be nice? Patriotism on max and the associated spend applied for the UK economy as a whole as highlighted by Marketing Week earlier this week.

It must be considered that  the earlier ‘breaches’ may just be LOCOG making an example of potential unofficial associations – hard to believe that an 81 grandmother needs to be made example of, however,  with the UK on show for the next 7 weeks the governing bodies need to ensure that legislation is met and the Olympic stage is set. It must also be noted that the media has not always given the governing committee and the Olympics as a whole the easiest of times with even the official Game’s broadcaster seeming rather negative at times. They could just be highlighting key cases to identify the stringent legislation and extreme solutions applied. In my walk to work over the last week alone I’ve seen a well-known high street fashion retailer don their mannequins with gold medals and podium imagery, estate agents with vinyl athlete imagery on their shop fronts and pubs and restaurants offering Olympic specials and Olympic Lunches (sorry Little Chef).

If the branding police want to clamp down on every last possible legislation breech they certainly have their work cut out keeping a very patriotic British public down and in my view as the games kicks off and hopefully British success follows this is only going to get worse. I’m watching in anticipation over the next few weeks and hope that we see more examples of pure creative genius such as the Paddy Power and Specsavers examples that have come out this week.

Bring on the games.

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