The Government published its London Olympics bill in July,
seeking to prevent any business making reference to the 2012
Olympics in its promotions, unless it is an official sponsor. This
is apparently required by the International Olympic Committee, an
attempt to control ambush marketing.
Ambush marketing generally occurs when one brand pays to sponsor
an event and a rival brand attempts to associate itself with the
event without being an official sponsor. For example, at the 1992
Barcelona Olympics, Reebok was among companies that paid $700
million to be "official sponsors"; but when the US basketball team
won gold, Nike sponsored the press conference and when Michael
Jordan accepted his gold, he covered up the Reebok logo on his
kit.
To protect official sponsors, the 2000 Sydney Olympics saw the
first example of legislation restricting the use of certain words
in Olympics advertising.
Following suit, the UK bill restricts the use of the words
“games”, “Two Thousand and Twelve”, “2012”, and “twenty twelve” in
combination with each other or in combination with words including
“gold,” “silver”, “bronze”, “London” and “summer”. And this,
marketing firms have complained, goes too far.
According to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
(IPA):
“As it stands at the moment the proposed
Bill seeks to greatly extend UK law over and above the protection
provided for general copyright, passing off, trade marks and the
Olympic Symbols Protection Act. The IPA is firmly of the belief
that official sponsors do not require any additional protection and
that IOC requirements are more than adequately complied with within
existing UK law.”
Media reports picked up the story, hyping the issues to warn
that small businesses could be fined up to £20,000 for adverts such
as “Come to London in 2012”.
But this is nonsense, according to the Department of Culture,
Media and Sport (DCMS). It explains:
“the Bill does not prevent the mere use of
words like ‘games’ and ‘gold’.
Instead it creates the London Olympics
association right, which means the London Organising Committee for
the Olympic Games (LOCOG) can authorise certain persons – most
likely official sponsors and commercial partners – to associate
themselves with the Games.”
Simply using words like “games” and “gold” will not attract
fines. The DCMS is concerned rather with the use of the listed
words in certain combinations in order to create an unauthorised
association with the Games.
Factual references to London and the Olympics will be legal and
phrases such as “Come to London in 2012” are not subject to a
blanket ban, according to the DCMS.
It explains: "While such expressions may be used to create an
association with the Olympics, there will be many cases in which
there is clearly no link to the Games. It will have to be decided
on a case by case basis whether infringement has occurred, but the
intention of the bill is to adopt a common sense approach."
Any infringement action taken by the LOCOG would be brought
before a court. It would be the court, not the LOCOG, that would
determine what level of fine was appropriate in each case.
