Olympic branding is a complex series of rules that govern that activity of a range of stakeholders, but one of the lesser known facts is that the host city enters into a contract that places considerable limitations on conventional freedoms during the Games. One example is shown by the image below, depicting a subway station during the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, one of the first to ensure that all billboard space was filled either by an Olympic sponsor or left blank. Another great example is the ‘Swatch street’, a branding street in Plaka, also during Athens 2004. However, it’s not all official occupation, there’s a lot of ‘soft’ ambush marketing by local businesses during the Games, such as restaurants with Olympic themed menus and shop fronts with Olympic displays.
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