The Olympics

The Olympics

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News, information and stories about the Olympic Games in Athens 2004 and the Olympics in general up until 2007.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Daft Advertising Rules Relaxed

The UK government has given in to pressure from the advertising industry, and signaled it will change its proposed controls on advertising during the 2012 Olympics.

However, as with anything promised by politicians, the devil will be in the detail.

The International Olympic Committee requires host cities to prevent "ambush marketing", namely advertisers trying to associate themselves with the Olympics without paying to be an official sponsor.

This rule is there to protect the real reason for the existence of the Olympics, the multi billion dollar consumer companies who sponsor the games.

The Department for Culture Media and Sport, as usual with Blair's government, went obverborard when it prepared legislation to comply with the IOC requirements.

Advertisers would have been banned from using the words gold, silver, bronze, London or summer in conjunction with games or 2012.

Totally daft!

Lobbying by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has persuaded the DCMS to make some changes to the legislation.

We shall see.

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