Turin Duct-Tape Police Target Non-Sponsors

First they came for the logos, but my logo wasn’t for an official sponsor, so I didn’t speak out:

Samsung can’t put its name on its popular flat-screen televisions, even in its own VIP lounge. Workers at Winter Olympic venues are taping over the Dell logos on laptops in the press boxes. The Austrians had to cover up the spiders on their Spyder jackets.
The advertising police are out in force at the Turin Games, enforcing arcane rules with a vigor unmatched at Olympics past.
Under International Olympic Committee rules:
— Sponsor logos are allowed, but only in certain places;
— Non-sponsors are out, no matter where;
— Venues must be kept free of advertising.
Even bottles of Coca-Cola, one of the Games’ biggest sponsors, have been ordered stashed out of view of the TV cameras.
“We don’t want the Olympic Games becoming, let’s say, a Formula-1 event where sponsors are on cars, on banners, everywhere,” said Cecilia Gandini, the head of brand protection for the Turin organizing committee. Gandini can recite Olympic advertising regulations from memory and spends her days touring venues in search of violations.
“We want to protect the value of the Olympic Games,” she said.

The value of the Olympic Games?? Oh, dear lord.
That reminds me of quote attributed to Churchill about the “traditions” of the British Navy: “Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”

Posted by on February 17th, 2006 at 3:45 pm


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