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29 March 2024

Sponsors guard against ambush Ads

Ashraf Al Amra

Published
By Staff Writer
Multinationals have paid a king’s ransom for their right to sponsor the Olympics and they are scanning the horizon for ambushes as they drive the marketing bandwagon towards Beijing.

Since China won the right to host the Games seven years ago, the government, Olympic officials and Beijing organisers have been building legal barricades to try to prevent unlicensed companies pilfering any Olympic gold dust. A series of decrees are being issued to protect the Games and Beijing’s Municipal Bureau of Intellectual Property is in charge of increasing awareness.

The Beijing Games has 12 global sponsors in the top partners programme for the 2006 Winter Games and the 2008 Summer Games, with contributions totalling around $900 million. The Beijing organisers will attract an additional $1 billion from local marketing contracts.

“Beijing has made a clear commitment on the rights of the sponsors,” said Zhou Jidong, Director of Beijing’s municipal legislation affairs office. “I believe during the Games there will be proper measures to protect their legal rights according to the IOC’s and sponsors’ demands,” he added.

Non-authorised drinks will be banned from Games venues in August as will spectators’ T-shirts advertising non-sponsors. With unlicensed T-shirts, caps and other accessories carrying the Beijing Olympics logo or mascots still being sold openly in street markets, people are requested to report infringements via the Beijing 2008 website. Last year Beijing issued 1 million yuan ($142,900) in fines to those flouting Olympic copyright rules.

Using the five-ring logo, selling unauthorised versions of the mascot and trying to persuade the public your company is part of the Olympic family through sleight-of-hand advertising are among ambush marketing tactics being targeted.

At the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Nike placed advertisements near the stadiums and established a “Nike village” even though it was not an official sponsor. This year it has already launched online videos highlighting its shoes for Beijing.

Visa Inc. sponsored the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, prompting American Express to run a campaign saying Americans did not need a ‘visa’ to travel to Norway.

Regulations covering sponsorship of major sporting events have been progressively widened and now routinely encompass what spectators can eat, drink and wear in venues and stadiums. The Sydney Olympics in 2000 were the first to be protected by legislation aimed at preventing non-sponsor companies from using official insignia and phrases such as “Sydney Games”.

Athens followed suit four years later, targeting spectators, who were prevented from entering stadiums if they were eating or drinking products of non-sponsors.

Beijing has posed a far greater problem than any previous Games because of China’s reputation for producing pirated goods and its lax attitude over intellectual property rights (IPR), which is a source of tension with the United States.

In Britain, the organisers of the 2012 Olympics have tried to tighten the legal screw even further – under a new law, the combined use of words such as “2012” and gold in advertising by non-sponsors could result in legal action.

Protective measures can veer towards the farcical.

Other ways around the rules are advertisements on television and radio during Olympic broadcasts, viral marketing through online videos, blogs or e-mails, and sponsoring individual athletes and teams attending the Games.

Despite sponsors’ anger over ambushes, many experts say companies grabbing a free ride on the back of an Olympics merely confirm the cliche there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Others say the IPR dangers posed by the Games in China and the proliferation of non-official marketing could have an impact on the sums sponsors are prepared to pay.

This year Nike has signed up hurdler Liu Xiang, an Athens hurdling gold medallist and hugely popular in China. Speedo is one of the most talked-about sports brands in the world after a host of swimmers broke world records in its new swimsuit.

Neither are official sponsors or suppliers of the Games. Nor is Li Ning, China’s largest sportswear retailer founded by the gymnast who won three golds at the 1984 Games, which will have its logo on shirts and shoes worn by sportscasters at the state-run Chinese channel which has exclusive rights to mainland broadcasts in August.

“These days, it doesn’t make much sense to sponsor the Olympics, as you cannot set yourself apart from others any more as brand awareness is diluted,” said Shaun Rein, Managing Director of China Market Research Group.

Far from China, Dubai has witnessed a frenzy of marketing events based on major sports events such as the World Cup. Clubs, restaurants, TV stations and various companies used the event to promote their brands by offering free access to watch games, raffle draws and prizes and branded Ramadan tents with huge screens, flags and Shisha.

  

The numbers

$900m is the total contributions of the 12 global sponsors under the top partners programme of the Beijing Games

$1b will be raised additionally from the local marketing contracts by the organisers of the Olympics Games