Thursday 19 July 2012

Censory deprivation

After chatting about 'Olympic Chips' with a work colleague yesterday, she has brought a brilliant Spectator article to my attention. It follows a similar piece by Ian Leslie on the ever informative Marbury blog which echoes my thoughts exactly.

It's crazy to see this hard line being taken by the organising committees over use of certain terms in print. It only serves to perpetuate the ridiculous demands of the corporates like McDonald's, Coca Cola etc. in turn

What really annoys me though is how completely unnecessary it all is. Whatever you might think of the Olympic Partners, or endorsements generally, the whole point of the partnering process is to raise the brand profile and reinforce public perceptions of status through association, hence raising sales in the mid to long-term and on a global scale.

The corporates shouldn't really care about what competing drink/chip products are available on a local level at the events themselves. It's a drop in the ocean in terms of overall sales and being so militant only serves to damage that very brand status they crave anyway.

The organising committees need to not be so petty themselves and put a stop to this ridiculous censorship but also be stronger and more aware of their own power in contract negotiations with potential partners, not allowing such ridiculous and unnecessary demands to be tolerated.

Here's The Spectator piece...
The battle with the Olympic censors

Here's the Marbury blog...
Olympic Chips

And if you haven't got time for all that nonsense, this sums things up pretty well...

Source: marbury.typepad.com/marbury/