Blimey – tomorrow is exactly 2 years until London 2012 actually starts, (732 days to go from today!) which still seems a fair time away, until you think that it means it was 2 years ago that we were all watching the amazing opening ceremony in Beijing.
The debates continue about the suitability of sponsors, budgets, the changes to the rules and of course the mascots, amongst others. You can’t please all of the people all of the time – but in interviews Seb Coe seems to have an authoritative air of control over everything, just as he did on the track all those years ago.
A report in Promotional Marketing this month shows that the impact of the 2012 Olympics are already being felt by the promotional marketing industry. Their research shows that over half (51%) of shoppers have started buying some items from a shop that they wouldn’t normally go to because of an Olympics promotion, while 14% have bought a brand they would not normally buy, 15% have bought more of a brand than they normally would and 18% have asked for more information about a product or service. All this with 2 years still to go! However the report goes on to warn brands to be careful not to infringe Olympic trademarks - Dutch brewery bavaria’s recent orane dress stunt at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa has put ambush marketing in the spotlight! 