During the Games in London over the past three weeks, many companies seemed to push the boundaries of ambush marketing with their advertising, despite London introducing some of the strictest rules ever to protect sponsors.
Those rules were very broad, but also vague, leading to uncertainty among brand owners. Managing IP recently presented a sliding scale of those adverts, demonstrating which risked the London organising committee, Locog, taking enforcement action.
In a comment to that article, a reader asked about the situation regarding sponsorship of individual athletes. The answer is that a combination of waivers to the rules and unwillingness to go after star athletes makes ambush marketing here much easier.
The rules binding individual athletes are not contained in legislation introduced by countries hosting the Games, as with direct advertising, but in the Olympic Charter. Rule 40 simply restricts athletes competing in the Games from appearing in advertising...