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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!"
You can say they may have too much security put up for brand protection at the Athens games, but they've already had a high profile failure... A man wearing a tutu and with the logo of a web-based casino paited on his chest jumped off a diving board into the pool at the diving venue.
The web casino gets all sorts of free worldwide media coverage and they only had to pay the one guy a few hundred dollars... pretty good bang for the advertising buck for a company that has trouble buying ads in mainstream venues.
This is what the Olympic officials most want to avoid. They've got sponsors paying for the right to be associated with the games, and they don't want anybody taking a free ride on their publicity.
It's bad enough I cant watch the superior coverage of the olympics legaly here in the USA due to similar contracts.
Here is a free prediction. By 2008 wireless broadband Internet will become even more widespread. Phones will get decent video cameras. Cameras will get excellent video cameras. People at the games will actually create a lot of footage and some will immediately release it online. The IOC will attempt to ban this (will they try to confiscate all phones and cameras? May be), but even for those totalitarian fascists it will be difficult to fight 5 million people watching the games at the same time. So expect to see free and original online coverage in 2008.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Am I the only one who wants to get a bunch of people together wearing color coordinated outfits so that when we sit in the stands we form a giant pepsi logo?
Well if they all ran Linux they would be happeir at the IOC and woudl not do this.