Olympic sponsors steeled for ambush

By Robert Woodward

LONDON (Reuters) - Multinationals have paid a king's ransom for their right to sponsor the Olympics and they are scanning the horizon for ambushes as they drive the marketing bandwagon towards Beijing.

Since China won the right to host the Games seven years ago, the government, Olympic officials and Beijing organisers have been building legal barricades to try to prevent unlicensed companies pilfering any Olympic gold dust.

The Beijing Games has 12 global sponsors in the top partners programme for the 2006 Winter Games and the 2008 Summer Games, with contributions totaling around $900 million. The Beijing organisers will attract an additional $1 billion from local marketing contracts.

Using the five-ring logo, selling unauthorized versions of the mascot and trying to persuade the public your company is part of the Olympic family through advertising sleight-of-hand are among ambush marketing tactics being targeted.

At the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Nike placed advertisements near the stadiums and established a "Nike village" even though it was not an official sponsor. This year it has already launched online videos highlighting its shoes for Beijing.

Visa Inc. sponsored the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, prompting American Express to run a campaign saying Americans did not need a 'visa' to travel to Norway.

Regulations covering sponsorship of major sporting events have been progressively widened and now routinely encompass what spectators can eat, drink and wear in venues and stadiums.

Some regard ambush marketing as parasitic and ethically dubious; others say it is the product of imaginative thinking and does not affect the bottom line of an Olympics or World Cup.

The Sydney Olympics in 2000 were the first to be protected by legislation aimed at preventing non-sponsor companies from using official insignia and phrases such as "Sydney Games."

Athens followed suit four years later, targeting spectators, who were prevented from entering stadiums if they were eating or drinking products of non-sponsors.

Beijing has posed a far greater problem than any previous Games because of China's reputation for producing pirated goods and its lax attitude over intellectual property rights (IPR), which is a source of tension with the United States.

SERIES OF DECREES

Jason K. Schmitz, of lawyers Mayer Brown Rowe and Maw in Chicago, said ambushers were unlikely to make such a dent on official sponsors' exposure that this could threaten an event's budget.

Nonetheless, since 2001, China has issued a series of decrees to protect the Games and Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Intellectual Property is in charge of increasing awareness.

"Beijing has made a clear commitment on the rights of the sponsors," said Zhou Jidong, director of Beijing's municipal legislation affairs office. "I believe during the Games there will be proper measures to protect their legal rights according to the IOC's and sponsors' demands."