Britain Flooded with 'Brand Police' to Protect Olympic Sponsors

[marmar]

Published on Monday, July 16, 2012 by Common Dreams

Britain Flooded with 'Brand Police' to Protect Olympic Sponsors
Likely to intensify criticism that the Olympics has become too corporate

- Common Dreams staff


Almost 300 "brand police" are soon to hit the streets of the UK, working to protect the advertising rights of major corporate Olympic sponsors, including McDonald's, Coke, BP oil, General Electric, Adidas, Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble and others, the Independent reports.

In sharp contrast to the scandal involving the under-staffing of security for the Olympic spectators, staffing has not been an issue when it comes to policing the interests of corporate sponsors. 3,500 British soldiers on leave are being brought in to bail out the security firm G4S which admitted last week it could not supply the numbers of security staff it had promised.

The special 'brand police' will hit the streets wearing purple caps and tops and have the right to enter shops and offices near Olympic sites and bring court action with fines of up to $31,000 for the 'misuse' of words such as "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London". Only 42 companies have been licensed to associate themselves with the Olympics.

Bars and pubs have been warned that blackboards advertising live TV coverage must not refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympics deal, while caterers and restaurateurs have been told not to advertise dishes that could be construed as having an association with the event. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/16-0

[movonne]

1. oh! for shits sake....

[Lindsay]

2. Take that London broil

off the menu right this minute!

[Xithras]

3. The real irony...

...is that the IOC gets nations to compete for its games by touting the supposed "economic benefits" the games will bring to their cities. Once they get their foot in the door, the IOC then goes to war against any businesses that actually try to reap any of those "economic benefits", unless those businesses cave and pay huge licensing fees.

There were a number of stories during the SLC games about mom and pop retailers getting nailed for some really inane "violations".