“The important thing is not to win, but to take part” apparently.

Although there are no long-standing, official definitions of the concept of ‘Olympic Spirit’ it is generally accepted to be something to do with participation, endeavour, effort and drive. Nothing then, to do with gold, glory or beating the competition.

So, after attending a recent CIPR talk given Mark Blayney Stuart, Head of Research at the CIM, on Ambush Marketing – and specifically how it is defined by the IOC and the legislation in place to quash it during London 2012 – it is unsurprising that I came away feeling rather bitter.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading the rules, let me enlighten you:

- no brand, company or commercial company (nor in fact the non-commercial ones who have not sought permission) not having paid to be an official sponsor may suggest or infer in any way that they have any connection to the games

- In practice this means that we cannot use any combination of the following words Games, 2012, Twenty-Twelve, Two Thousand and Twelve or use any of them in combination with anything in this second list of words: Gold, Silver, Bronze, London, Medals, Summer, Sponsor/s

- these rules apply to all forms of marketing and all forms of media: meaning that (subject to hefty fines) not only cannot one issue a press release which includes  any connection, event inferred, to the Olympics but this also applies to Facebook posts, blogs post and tweets.  i.e. as PRs we cannot send a tweet which in any way promotes a client which makes reference to any of the above. Nor can your clients post anything that makes any reference, or inference to the aforementioned insanely restrictive list of words

So, some illustrative examples:

A tourist company cannot run an ad saying ‘Come to London in 2012’, nor can a landlord display a hand-written blackboard outside his pub saying ’come in and watch the London games on our big screen’.

Ridiculous? Of course it is.

The thing that REALLY annoyed me, as apposed to annoy me quite a lot (which most of it did, as you may have noticed), was the defense that the Olympic Games are ‘non-commercial’. What tripe! There are sponsors so they are, by definition, commercial. If the games were non-commercial then they would be entirely funded by the public purse, would they not, rather than seek 10% of the costs from brands such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola.

But yes, ok, it’s a modern world we live in and sporting events have sponsors. And yes, we all know and accept that the official sponsors should have their rights protected. But surely the nature of Olympic Spirit is the taking part and small, independent companies who are only trying to enter into the spirit of things (there’s that word again) should be allowed to do so without the fear of police intervention to remove the offending articles – yes, really, that’s in there too – or a £20,000 fine.

What ever happened to a bit of healthy competition?

Bah. Am feeling very grumpy about this.

And by the way, if you are worried about my apparent wanton disregard of the rules by writing all of this out here… ‘editorial’ is not covered by the rules and so blogging – as long as am careful to avoid any reference to a brand or paying client – is allowed. Oh, thanks for that.