BT Need Value For Their £125m Investment in the Olympics
Posted by Cloud Net on Wed, Jul 21, 2010 @ 03:05 AM
The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 
sections 19-21 governs the way that advertising will be regulated during the period of the Olympics.
It includes not only the rights to enter premises to destroy advertising but also the ability to levy a fine of up to £20,000.
The Olympic Delivery Authority will lay out detailed provisions within 6 months of the start of the Olympics. The general provisions that we must obey in terms of advertising by force of law were produced in April of this year.
On the Olympic Delivery Authority Web Site a lady called Alex, who started work for the authority in 2005 says “I am a Brand Protection Lawyer. Brand protection is vital to London 2012, as we must raise around £2bn from private sources to stage the Games. Much of this funding will be generated by exploiting our brand.
Aside from revenue generated from ticket sales and broadcasting, the London 2012 Organising Committee is entirely reliant on sponsorship funding, and revenue from merchandise.
The value of the London 2012 brand and the goodwill in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements is therefore crucial, and protecting the brand is a top priority.”
BT is one of five 'Tier One' sponsors, which are expected to enjoy publicity worth at least £50m from their connection with the Games and being able to use the 2012 logo on adverts alongside the Olympic rings.
BT has agreed to provide communications services for the event in East London, including the Olympic Village and outposts such as Weymouth in Dorset, where the sailing events will take place.
Even though BT is set to get publicity worth £50m to £80m from its association, it is expected to provide goods and services worth about £125m.
The race to become the prime communications sponsor was hotly contested between BT and Orange, owned by state-controlled France Telecom.
So there is some pretty serious money going into preventing any ambush marketing going on. Given that BT is spending £125m (which works out at around £6 per customer) it is only right and proper that it gets this kind of protection.
Claims of draconian protection from for example the Chartered Institute of Marketing are ridiculous. If we want the Olympics (and the majority of people did) then it is far better that business pays than tax payers.
It seems reasonable to me that we should use our ingenuity to market our systems within the spirit of fair competition and that means letting BT enjoy the fruits of their £125m.
So Cloud Net will continue marketing our excellent business telephone systems with a miniscule fraction of the money that BT are spending but we will not seek to imply that we are in any way associated with the Olympics. (And please support BT during the Olympics because they need to get their millions back somehow.)
Written by David Hill, Chairman, Cloud Net