Fashioning an Olympics window

GOLD MEDAL for Koh Creative, the creative agency responsible for the Olympic-themed window display and accompanying marketing literature at Clerys’ department store in Dublin.

A similar shop window in London probably wouldn’t last very long. Olympics organising body Locog has come under fire from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing for treating local businesses that dare to borrow some Olympian goodwill with the same zero tolerance as they would a large corporation engaged in big-budget ambush marketing tactics.

Locog’s now notorious list of banned expressions prevents non-sponsors from using two of its “List A” words – Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012, Twenty-Twelve – in promotional material, or combining one of those words with any of its “List B” culprits – London, medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver, bronze.

Some 300 enforcement officers, dubbed “brand police”, have been employed to identify businesses that flout the rules.

Any suggestion of an association between a business’s products or services, such as cakes and florists’ displays, and the Olympic Games could lead to prosecution – a fact that prompted current affairs magazine The Spectator to dub the games “the Censorship Olympics” in its cover story.

In an indication of its desire to keep a stranglehold over language, Locog’s brand protection document helpfully explains that London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 grants “exceptions for editorial and journalistic use”, placing a green tick next to an image of a newspaper with the unlikely front-page headline “London welcomes Olympic chiefs”.

As well as a Katie Taylor boxing glove tribute, Clerys’ window also features mannequins writhing in the ribbons of rhythmic gymnastics and dummies dressed in riding gear and fencing masks.

Expect to see more greco fonts, golden hues and vaguely sporty-looking promotional material in the weeks ahead as the marketing games begin.