Unless you’ve bought an official sponsorship, for your business to so much as mention the upcoming Olympics on social media “can be like doing the 100-yard dash through a minefield.” The rules warn non-sponsors not to “create social media posts that are Olympic themed… or congratulate Olympic performance” even if you have sponsored individual hopefuls, wish luck, use phrases like “go for the gold” or “let the games begin,” report Olympic results, host Olympic-themed team-building exercises for your employees, or “share anything from official Olympics social media accounts. Even retweets are prohibited.” [AdWeek]
4 Comments
Retweets? Good luck policing that!
And there’s always stories about “Olympic Deli” or “Olympic Dry Cleaner” being sued. Here was the first one I got from the google:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120713/06513919689/us-olympic-committee-forces-30-year-old-philidelphia-gyro-restaraunt-to-change-its-name.shtml
There are many others.
Interesting they never went after “Special Olympics” (I imagine they made some sort of arrangement with them.)
I propose a compromise: We refer to them as the The Games Which Must Not Be Named (especially not named after a mountain range in Western Washington State) or TGWMNBN(ennaamriWWS) for short.
By discouraging popular involvement in olympics related activities, they are also diminishing the significance of the event in the popular culture. Ultimately, another step down the road to making the olympics just another high money sporting event.
Would not the utterance, “The Olympics are operated by a gang of authoritarian nitwits” be protected by the fair-use commentary principle?