Shush! Don’t mention the Olympics!
I got the weekly marketing email from eBay yesterday and the main box out section was “Turn your home into a stadium, with our great choice home electronics”. I’ve no problem with this per se, but the reason eBay are being so coy and not saying “Get yourself a big telly to watch the Olympics” is because they don’t want to get sued.
I’ve yet to see much positive Olympic PR, although to be fair David Cameron did a great job of trying to paper over the cracks of LOCOG’s team yesterday, even praising the last government for helping bring the Games to the UK. The trouble is that LOCOG are so desperately trying to protect the investment of the sponsors that everyone else is scared to mention the Olympics in their marketing in case they get a £20,000 fine.
It didn’t help the brand police cause last week, when Seb Coe arbitrarily banned spectators from turning up to the games wearing anything with a Pepsi logo. When pressed he said you might be ok wearing Nike trainers, but he appears to be so obsessed about the sponsors that he’s stifling the country’s small businesses from benefiting from the Olympics. Embarrassingly LOCOG didn’t back up Lord Coe saying “Any individual coming into our venues can wear any item of clothing, branded or otherwise”.
With the brand mafia on the warpath it’s not surprising that everyone including eBay is subtly alluding to the London 2012 Olympic Games as “The Summer of Sports“. On eBay’s Olympic themed microsite, the “Support your nation” link gets you Olympic branded merchandise, but they don’t dare to actually mention the 2012 Games in their marketing. Whilst the UKTI has opened up the British Business Embassy at Lancaster House, to tout for overseas trade, the rest of the country are worrying about what they can and can’t say to attract consumers to their wares.
eBay warn their sellers to be aware that several terms and trademarks related to the Olympic Games and London 2012 are protected and can only be used in compliance with legal guidance“. It’s no surprise eBay themselves talk about Stadiums and the Summer of sports and don’t mention the Olympic Games.
The one person who really appears to have seen sense is London Mayor Boris Johnson, who scoffed saying “If you want to stick five doughnuts in your window and call them Olympic rings then be my guest” and “If bakers want to make a gigantic Olympic pretzel in the high streets of London to advertise their wares then let them do so“. He left LOCOG in no doubt of his meaning insisting “I think it’s absolute nonsense. Certainly no brand army is going have support of the administration in London – and we won’t be making any efforts to enforce it ourselves”
So enjoy the Summer of Sports Opening Ceremony this evening. Cheer for our athletes, but shush… don’t mention the London 2012 Olympic Games. That’s not allowed.
Clarky says
10:23 am on 27/07/2012
There is a list of what you can and cannot say in conjunction with other words etc, I took one look at it and decided not to bother with any form of marketing to do with the Olympics although I admit whenever I see “proud sponsor of the Olympics” on TV I immediately think “bunch of ****, you want me to buy your over inflated product so you can spend millions being “the official dishwasher detergent” or whatever nonsense. If a company had an ego…
ebuyerfb says
10:28 am on 27/07/2012
Is the ban on 2012 still being enforced?
paddy says
10:37 am on 27/07/2012
Aside from ambush marketing the ban on using Olympic trademarks should be ignored completely. Even in just this short article there is confusion from official sources what is and isn’t allowed. Keep it simple and let the small man make a few quid.
Chris says
11:02 am on 27/07/2012
I have expected the Olympics to be a shambles ever since Seb Coe was appointed to be in charge of it all. Seb Coe was an MP for a Cornish Constituency(Falmouth Camborne).
Over the years we in Cornwall have had some totally useless MP’s. Seb Coe was certainly in that category. Some would argue that he was the very worst. I am not certain if that was true because I can think of one or two who were even worse.
It might go some way to explain why the flags of Wales, Scotland etc are welcome at the Olympics but that the flag of Cornwall is specifically banned.
Yet at the recent Procession along the River Thames in regard to the Queens Jubilee there were several ships and boats flying the flag of Cornwall
St Georges Dragon says
11:46 am on July 27th, 2012
Cornwall could hold their own games,
spot the industry , would be a difficult one to get gold in though
Dan Wilson says
4:10 pm on July 27th, 2012
Re flags. It is worth noting that Wales and Scotland are countries with national flags. And that Cornwall, whatever the hopes of many, quite simply is not.
Chris says
4:32 pm on July 27th, 2012
Cornwall has a very interesting status going back over many hundreds of years. There is a considerable body of informed opinion that Cornwall’s status is actually that it is a Country in its own right and has been since well before 1066.
However the english and especially the totally ill informed english still state that Cornwall is just a County like Devon or Somerset.
Just about everything about Cornwall is differant. Even just recently after a major study it was announced that the Cornish are even genetically differant to the english.
Cornwall should be considered as a Celtic Country just like Wales and Scotland because Legally that is what it is.
In regard to Industry. If you go around Cornwall you will see many remains of Cornish Industry. The Industrial Revolution in many respects started in Cornwall. The Tin Mines had hit a problem, Water was limiting the depth that they could mine to. They needed to be drained. And Engineers in Cornwall and outside of Cornwall were working on the problem long before the Industrial Revolution got going generally across the UK.
After all Trevithick was Mining Engineer and he Invented the Motor Car(with his Steam Powered Vehicle) and the Railway Locomotive(long before the Stephensons)
Yet if you have ever been involved in an attempt to get funding towards a Industrial Project in Cornwall(as I have been) you will find that the english bureaucrats and politicians always specifically exclude Cornwall from being able to benefit. Even when a scheme does go ahead you will find that the rules are rigged to kill the scheme.
I was the Company Accountant for one such scheme where the rules were rigged to close us down and 80 people in the employment blackspot of Penzance lost their jobs so that the scheme could be transfered to Leicestershire.
Cornwall has over the years produced many fine Engineers and Scientists but because the rules are rigged to exclude Industry in Cornwall they have to go abroad to such as London, Birmingham and Manchester to follow their calling.
st georges dragon says
6:03 pm on July 27th, 2012
most of the uk could claim to have been a seperate country in the past, essex wessex northumbria cumbria. are a few that spring to mind,
and as for genetics I doubt there is a soul in the UK that can claim to be pure bred
Chris says
9:32 am on July 28th, 2012
That is true but there is a mass of Treaties, Statutes etc coming right up to relatively modern times which all show conclusively that Cornwall was always Officially a Separate Country. Indeed it is only in relatively recent times that Cornwall has been considered as anything other than a separate Country.
Then in the last couple of hundred years and certainly since the invention of the Railways that Cornwall has been considered as a part of England. Yet to those with any form of education we all know that the boundary between england and Cornwall still runs up the middle of the Rivar Tamar.
Cornwall should have the same status today as Wales and Scotland. After all legally that is the status that it has had for many centuries.
It would do a great deal of good for Cornwall. After all the english have proved by many years(decades) of neglect for the interests of Cornwall and the Cornish that they are totally and utterly incompetant. If Cornwall controlled itself from a Cornish Parliament in Truro it could not possibly do a worse job that being controlled by an english parliament based in London.
AS far as being “pure bred” or not this is nothing to do with it. The Cornish have been proved(by a University Study carried out by people far more qualified in DNA and Genetics than st georges dragon or indeed myself) to be genetically differant to the english and genetically similar to the Welsh(who are also genetically differant to the english)
st georges dragon says
3:44 pm on July 28th, 2012
TOTAL BOLLOCKS
Chris says
4:45 pm on July 28th, 2012
Might I point to st georges dragon’s reply as proof that my comments about education are fully justified.
st georges dragon says
6:30 pm on July 28th, 2012
whoops sorry forgot about the education bit,
for our international friends the
following ifrom wikipedia though it is also entered in the oxford english dictionary
“Bollocks” /ˈbɒləks/ is a word of Anglo-Saxon origin, meaning “testicles”. The word is often used figuratively in British English and Hiberno-English, as a noun to mean “nonsense”, an expletive following a minor accident or misfortune, or an adjective to mean “poor quality” or “useless”. Similarly, the common phrases “Bollocks to this!” or “That’s a load of old bollocks” generally indicate contempt for a certain task, subject or opinion. Conversely, the word also figures in idiomatic phrases such as “the dog’s bollocks”, “top bollock(s)”, or more simply “the bollocks” (as opposed to just “bollocks”), which will refer to something which is admired, approved of or well-respected.
st georges dragon says
6:36 pm on July 28th, 2012
also from wikipedia
Sod in British English is a somewhat offensive, pejorative term for a person, derived from sodomite[1] but rarely nowadays used with this meaning. As an insult, it is generally teamed with ‘off’, i.e., ‘sod off’ meaning to get lost/go away/stop bothering me
Chris says
10:22 pm on July 28th, 2012
For our international friends. Great Britain has been inhabited for many thousands of years. But there are a number of White Anglo Saxons who would have you believe that everybody of the traditional indigenous white population is of Anglo Saxon descent.
I have even seen them refer to Cardiff(the Capital City of Wales) as Cardiff, England. From what st georges dragon has said I get the distinct impression that he is of this ilk.
To him the Cornish(of Celtic descent), the Welsh and Scots and of course the Irish(all of Celtic descent) are also really Anglo Saxons.
So to st georges drago Cornish Nationality has to be denied because he believes that they are really Anglo Saxons and that Celtic ancestory does not exist.
Since the developments in such as DNA the scientists can now put together the ancestory of people. They can identify the differances between peoples. In Cornwall such a study has been able to identify distinct DNA differances between the Cornish and Devonian peoples. Of course such differances are inconvenient to people like st georges drago who fight hard to protect their belief that we are all of Anglo Saxon descent.
When I was at School(a very long time ago-long before DNA was discovered). We were taught that the various invasions of the British Isles came from the East and as the invaders spread across the country they either assimulated the previous population, or killed them or drove them Westward.
Thus the earlier peoples of the British Isles would have ended up in such as Ireland, Wales, or Cornwall with of course others driven Northwards becoming the Scots(although the population of Scotland is complicated by the historic Scots, Irish and Picts who all settled and lived in Scotland).
But of course st georges dragon has to deny that the Cornish are differant. The fact that they have a historic Nation and of course their own Language and certainly a very differant DNA profile is inconvdenient but to him it still has to be denied.
My ancestors did not live in Cornwall. I was not born in Cornwall. So my DNA will not be Cornish. But I have lived in Cornwall for the vast majority of my life. I know that the Cornish are differant. They have a National Identity and that this should be recognised. The DNA study has proved that it is scientifically based and not just my feeling having lived here for many years.
The Statutes and Treaties going back centuries prove that until recently this was recognised. Yet people like st georges dragon rather than thinking about it just come out with obscenities and deny it because as far as they are concerned we are all Anglo Saxons.
st georges dragon says
8:08 am on July 29th, 2012
Therapy (in Greek: θεραπεία), or treatment, is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a diagnosis. In the medical field, it is synonymous with the word “treatment”.
Chris says
8:33 am on July 29th, 2012
I suspect that if any Treatment is needed that st georges dragon is far more in need of it than I am(except perhaps in regard to my bad back and asthma)
st georges dragon says
11:13 am on July 29th, 2012
DELUSION
A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary.[1] Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological (the result of an illness or illness process).[1] As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.
Delusions typically occur in the context of neurological or mental illness, although they are not tied to any particular disease and have been found to occur in the context of many pathological states (both physical and mental). However, they are of particular diagnostic importance in psychotic disorders including schizophrenia, paraphrenia, manic episodes of bipolar disorder, and psychotic depression.
Chris says
5:06 pm on July 29th, 2012
I think that the operative word here is “superior” as in “superior evidence”. I must have missed st georges dragons “superior evidence” or indeed any “evidence” at all from that quarter.
If I stated as my opinion that Cornwall is a separate Country with its own Culture, Heritage, Language and People then that would be one thing. However as I said above there has been a properly constituted University study of the DNA of the Cornish and they have been found to be distinct from the Devonians(for our foreign friends Devon is only a few miles away from Cornwall and the Devon/Cornwall Border runs up the middle of the River Tamar.
As can be expected in the “Border” areas there is a degree of “mixing” of the DNA but the further you get from the Border the more distinct the Cornish DNA is.
Obviously if st georges dragon was to offer “Superior” evidence or indeed ANY evidence then perhaps we could take some notice of it but as usual he has offered no evidence at all. Just snide or obscene comments – as usual.
st georges dragon says
5:25 pm on July 29th, 2012
For the language game, see Gibberish (language game).
Gibberish (sometimes spelled Jibberish) is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense.
Chris says
11:08 pm on July 29th, 2012
Perhaps if st georges dragon was to read his own statements and pronouncements and think of this his latest posting he might realise that it correctly describes so much of his pronouncements.
Chris says
11:44 pm on July 29th, 2012
Perhaps if st georges dragon would like to google Cornish DNA Study he might find any number of relavent articles. But perhaps he might like to try http//www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9336923/Welsh-and-Cornish-are-the-purest-Britons-scientists-claim-html. Then he could stop showing everyone his ignorance.
st georges dragon says
9:11 am on July 30th, 2012
Blithering.
The act of speaking foolishly and without purpose, often annoying others in the process. Talking at length for the sake of hearing one’s own voice.
Chris says
11:40 am on July 30th, 2012
Years ago there was a saying about “Empty Vessels making the most noise”. I take it that st georges dragon has not checked google because if he had he would have found a considerable amount of material that backs what I said.
Unless of course he is saying that all the Oxford University Research Team and others also do not know what they are talking about.
I take it that st georges dragon has all the necessary qualifications, experience and of course has carried out detailed research and found a differant result. Or is it as I believe all ignorant bluster on his part.
st georges dragon says
11:45 am on July 30th, 2012
This has gone on long enough! stop making an utter fool of your self man,
we could not care less if you have the DNA of a pure bred Cornish pasty
Chris says
12:02 pm on July 30th, 2012
I take it that st georges dragon has finally checked google and found the details of a major Oxford University Research project and what it has found. The DNA of the Cornish are very differant to the DNA of the English. Which is what I said in the first place. So rather than me making a fool of myself perhaps st georges dragon has made far more of a fool of himself.
There is another point that should be considered for the future. Over the months and years st georges dragon has often made pronouncements on numerous subjects. No doubt he will do in the future. But I find myself wondering just how much belief we can have in them when it is obvious that he will continue making such stupid pronouncements even when it should be obvious to all that he knows absolutely nothing about the subject under discussion.
st georges Dragon says
11:41 am on 27/07/2012
a dirty big bottle of Coke bunged in front of Ryan Giggs at a press conference was so naff
board_surfer says
12:46 pm on 30/07/2012
Actually one of you is a procrastinating buffoon and the other is a wind up merchant, you can choose which is which.
Problem is that you are probably putting folk off commenting on this site.
So you may want to take a look at yourselves.
st georges dragon says
3:26 pm on July 30th, 2012
Anyone want any wind up baffoons ?