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Olympic officers set out to protect official sponsors and prevent ambush marketing

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By The Drum, Editorial

July 16, 2012 | 2 min read

Almost 300 Olympics officers will begin touring the country to check firms are not illegally associating themselves with the Olympic Games in a bid to protect official sponsors’ multimillion-pound marketing deals.

Said to be the biggest brand protection operation ever to be staged in the UK, the experts in trading and advertising are working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), and will use legislation specially introduced for the games. They will have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £200,000.

The ODA and LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) claim the officers are needed to protect brands such as, Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and BP, who have official sponsorship rights.

Businesses have already been issued with a list of banned words, including “gold”, “silver” and “bronze”, “summer”, “sponsors” and “London”, which are not to be used in advertisements during the games. Caterers and restaurants have been advised not so sell dishes which could be thought of as having links to the games and bars advertising live TV coverage have been told they cannot refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympic deal in their advertisements.

The news follows last week’s announcement that at the 40 Olympic venues, 800 retailers have been banned from serving chips to avoid infringing fast-food rights secured by McDonalds.

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