Marks, set, ambush - associating your brand with the Olympics

Thanks to Team GB's Beijing medal bonanza and the official handover to London as the next host city, the Olympic Games has dominated the news over the last few weeks. Marketing teams are no doubt rubbing their hands at the prospect of linking their brands into the long build-up to London 2012; some may already have congratulatory campaigns off the starting blocks.

Advertising & Marketing Law expert Dan Smith says, "Businesses need to beware: where they do not opt for a multi-million pound official sponsorship package, they could well fall foul of onerous legislation designed to protect the rights of those official sponsors."

He adds, "Legislation is aggressively enforced by a regulator seeking to extract the last drop of sponsorship cash. After all, there is an Olympic Games to pay for and it is a well-publicised fact that the cost of staging the Games has already escalated to around nine billion pounds."

Now is a good time for a quick reminder of what the law has to say about ambush marketing. Read Wragge & Co's expert analysis of what you can and cannot do.