Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee is taking strange measures to keep its top sponsors in view:
“BEIJING — At the Olympic Games here, you drink Coca-Cola beverages, eat McDonald’s food, ride in Volkswagen sedans and watch events on giant Panasonic video screens.
Beijing organizers have gone to great lengths — employing a dedicated staff armed with plenty of tape — to ensure that companies providing otherwise important services but who aren’t official sponsors don’t upstage the companies that are. See photo.
You also take ———- elevators, are protected by ———- fire alarms, cool down thanks to ———- air conditioners, and wash your hands under ———- faucets.
To ensure that only the companies that pay millions of dollars to be official Olympic sponsors enjoy the benefits of exposure in Olympic venues, organizers have covered the trademarks of nonsponsors with thousands of little swatches of tape.”
“Soon after a piece of tape is removed, however, a new one quickly appears — thanks to Chinese workers charged with tape replacement. ‘We assign workers in [the Main Press Center] to check and replace tape that has been peeled off to make sure the tape still works every day,’ says a Chinese official in charge of that work at the MPC.” [Read]
