Being official doesn’t always pay
“Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011 Edition” was the not-so-catchy logo that Canadian athletic chain Lululemon emblazoned across its clothing during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, poking fun at the pernickety restrictions on the use of Olympics related wording by non-official partners. Despite the legislation, one‑third of the top 15 brands in the 2010 Winter Olympics were “ambushers” according to the TrendTopper Ambush Index from Global Language Monitor. Evaluating perception of brands’ Olympic sponsorship status according to media presence, it found that official partnerships don’t pay off: PepsiCo, which has no official Olympic affiliation, made position 15 with stealth marketing, while official partner Coca-Cola, which paid an estimated $100m for official status, lagged behind at 16. But beware the legislation before you ambush: read CIM’s Marketing and the Olympics.
Mascots’ legacies last
If you think the public response to the 2012
Olympics logo was vitriolic, the reaction to the amorphous, Cyclops‑eyed mascots
Wenlock and Mandeville gave it a run for its money. Ever since Waldi the multi-coloured sausage dog made his appearance at the 1972 Munich Olympics, mascots have become integral to the Games and another source of merchandising revenue. While Moscow’s Misha the Russian bear was popular enough in 1980 to have his own animated TV show, Izzy (short for “What is it?”), the abstract blue mascot of the 1997 Atlanta Olympics, has plagued the designer’s career ever since. Lambasted by The Simpsons creator as “a bad marriage of the Pillsbury doughboy and the ugliest California Raisin”, Izzy was still bitterly regretted by designer John Ryan 12 years on, Ryan told the BBC.
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