Sidney Crosby of the Canadian Men’s Hockey Team was not the only one who scored big at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Games, so did TELUS by means of ambush marketing.
Ambush marketing is where a non-sponsor of an event deliberately tries to create unauthorized association between their brand and the event. Although Bell was the official sponsor, TELUS continued its community based sponsorship initiatives on Whistler, leading many consumers to believe it was associated with the Games. With that in mind, the ‘London Olympic Association Right’ (LOAR) was created to give the 2012 games’ organizers the authority to “grant licenses to authorized sponsors to use the symbols, words and logos of the event” (news.bbc.co.uk) preventing non-sponsors from creating unofficial association with the games. According to BBC News, “[t]here are two lists of prohibited expressions, with marketers falling foul if they use any two words in list A, or any word in list A with one or more of the words in list B.” The level of rigidity of the legislation minimizes the chances of ambush marketing campaigns in 2012.
