Corporate Titans Competing for Olympic Gold: How Ad Wars Have Hijacked the Games

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via AlterNet:



Corporate Titans Competing for Olympic Gold: How Ad Wars Have Hijacked the Games

By Geoff Dembicki, AlterNet. Posted January 16, 2010.

This February, get ready for a 21st century Olympics, where the big corporate spending battles could overshadow the rivalries of the ice rink and ski slope.




This article was produced in collaboration with The Tyee, where it originally appeared.


On June 16, 2006, 1,000 Dutch soccer fans were forced to strip to their underwear in Stuttgart, Germany. They'd waited in 25 minute lines, shuffling step by step towards the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion. At the door, stern FIFA World Cup officials ordered them to remove their bright orange lederhosen.

One Dutch man threw his over a fence. A stadium steward approached his waiting friends, likely tossing the confiscated pants into a rubbish-filled storage bin with all the others. Bare-legged Dutch fans ambled to their seats, leg hairs bristling from the draft.

Absurd? Not in the bloodied-nose arena of international sports marketing, where no punches are held and most are below the belt. FIFA was merely protecting the $1.1 billion investment of official World Cup sponsor Budweiser. Dutch brewery Bavaria had circulated thousands of branded orange trousers to beer-loving soccer fans.

Despite the best efforts of FIFA's pants-police, Budweiser's dollar signs couldn't match the simple ingenuity of its rival. Worldwide media exposure meant everyone was talking about Bavaria's crazy stunt. And FIFA and its sponsors looked profoundly uncool. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/world/145204/corporate_titans_competing_for_olympic_gold%3A_how_ad_wars_have_hijacked_the_games