Oddbins launches anti-Olympics campaign

Oddbins has launched an anti-Olympics campaign with censored posters and discounts for customers wearing Nike, paying with Mastercard and carrying an iPhone.

According to The Drum, anyone who goes into an Oddbins branch wearing Nike trainers, with a set of Vauxhall car keys, a RBS MasterCard, an iPhone, a bill from British Gas and a receipt for a Pepsi bought at KFC will receive 30% off their purchase.

Ayo Akintola, managing director at Oddbins, said: “The London Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the whole of the UK’s business community to come together to support our fantastic athletes and celebrate an awe-inspiring festival of sport.

“But thanks to LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games), any business without the tens of millions of pounds required to join the cabal of multinational brand partners for the Games are reduced to the status of beggars on the gilded streets of the Olympic movement.

“We have taken steps to ensure our planned window displays do not flout any of these asinine rules, but we are doing this primarily to highlight the absurdity of the fact that the British people – who are paying for these games – are at the same time being subject to ridiculous rules.”

A suit hire shop in Surbiton has also created its own Olympic marketing that gets around the rules – pictured below – which has generated lots of publicity on Twitter.

However, writing for Newsline, City A.M.’s managing editor Marc Sidwell defends the rules protecting Olympic sponsors, saying that while they may seems petty from the outside, they matter.

“The companies involved in supporting the Games, whether on a national level or as worldwide sponsors, have made large commitments over many years, providing a vital stream of revenue and expertise that helps keep the Olympics alive. It’s important that the investment they have made now buys them the exclusivity and high profile that was promised in return”.