The IOC's 'Clean Venue' Policy

Dave21212 writes "Yes folks, the International Olympic Committee's 'Brand Protection Team' will be protecting against the threat of Advertising Terrorism at the games. According to an MSNBC article, the IOC's Karen Webb states 'Our role is to protect all of our sponsor categories and actively monitor ambush activity.' Restricted items include, flags, umbrellas, shirts, hats, and bags with trademarks of rival sponsors. Unofficial brands can be confiscated and with only Coke allowed on Olympic grounds, this brings new meaning to The Pepsi Challenge!"

Comments

The Olympic Charter

[Anonymous Coward]

From the IOC website:

MISSIONS
What is the goal of the Olympic Movement?

According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

I think it's long overdue for a rewrite.

Re:Frightening

[kfg]

Of course the problem comes in the fact that many of the athletes rely on personal sponsors to compete at all; and if you're sponsored by Adidas but have to wear a Nike shirt or no shirt at all, well, you go without the Adidas money you need to train and compete because there's nothing in the deal for Adidas.

The organizers end up with all the loot, the competitors themselves are left out in the cold.

This a big deal in NASCAR right now, what with Coke sponsoring events and cars sponsored by Pepsi winning races and vice versa.

It's a fucking mess.

KFG

Re:Frightening

[randyest]

Without sponsors, the Olympic games simply wouldn't have enough funding to go on.

Are you serious?

If this isn't a troll, then you've lost touch a bit. The Olympics are supposed to be about international athletic competetion. Not million-dollar stage shows with fireworks and robotic Greek gods flying around. None of that adds to the real spectacle, IMHO, and none of the games requires expensive equipment or locales.

The article said Coke spent $60M, VISA another $30M, something like $120M from just the major sponsors.

You could have a perfectly excellent Olympics for a tenth or less of that. An acceptable Olympics (to most) for under a million.

The athletes want to compete, not be whores for some commercial concern (at least until after they win.)

Re:Bottles without labels?

[jelle]

Actually I'll turn it around by saying that it's not the companies spending a lot of money that are needed to make Olympic games happen, but that what you consider a 'modern Olympic games' is a result of the companies spending all that money.

Now, if you think Olympic games are about the fireworks and a city getting cash to build a large infrastructure around the games that they can enjoy long after, you should love it the way it is. If you think the Olympic games are about athletic achievements, you must realize that you can run and jump very well without having to create such a show and without having to build all that brand new infrastructure.

Personally, I think that although it's very nice if the cities organizing such an event can reap such benefits, I still think that for a lack of creativity, the Olympic committee has sold its soul for money.

There have to be ways to finance the event without having to be anal about which brand of soda people walk around with, and without having to forbid athletes to blog, and without selling all exclusive media rights to a single company per country, etc. Just think how much more fun and informative the event would be for everybody if there would be blogs firectly from the athletes right after they win/lose a competition, and if more of the media except just NBC joined in the coverage.