This week saw the announcement of the new London 2012 Olympic brand. The brand vision has taken on the true spirit of the Olympic games, which is to bring people together and inspire people to push boundaries and fulfill their potential. As London 2012 Olympic Chair Sebastian Coe stated, "London 2012 will be everyone’s games". This is a strong and appropriate vision for the games and the new emblem has embraced this spirit with the Olympic and Paralympic Games logos being the same for the first time in history. However, the design of the icon itself is likely to be less successful. The Olympic committee have striven to create a brand that will attract young people to the games and so encourage their participation in the games and sport in general. This is a worthwhile ambition for the games, especially considering the rise in childhood obesity, but it seems that they have overlooked their own vision of inclusiveness and created an image that the majority will struggle to connect with. So much so in fact that it has prompted an online petition for it to be scrapped, which has already received over 17,000 signatures. Responding to the huge number of complaints, the BBC has launched a competition to design an alternative logo.
Creating such a brash visual statement is a high-risk strategy not only because it may fail to communicate the spirit of the games to the majority of people, but because building a strong brand is critical in attracting private sector funding for the games and generating merchandise sales. The nature of the design also makes it likely to date very quickly. In fact, far from being forward thinking, it is viewed by many as looking like something from the 1980’s and with the games still five years away, it may look even more dated by the time the games actually arrive.
It is also interesting to note that during the bidding process, London 2012 was billed as the first 'green' Olympics. This may well be embodied in much of the infrastructure being built for the games, but there is no mention of this link between the health benefits of sport and a healthy environment in the new brand vision. This could sadly lead to the 2012 games failing to make the most of their opportunity to communicate the benefits of sustainability on a global stage and showcase London and the UK as leaders in this field.
It is intended that the new brand will be dynamic and will evolve "in the years between now and 2012", so perhaps there is still hope for the Olympic brand to recover and become something that connects with and inspires people across society, as well as communicating a strong message about the benefits of sport.
Details of the London 2012 brand can be found on the official website:
http://main.london2012.com/en/
-Tom Greenwood
Tom Greenwood, Brand Strategist and co-founder of Sustainable Brand Strategy company Scamper (http://www.sustainablebrandstrategy.com) says that the new Olympic brand not only fails to fulfil its own vision of 'everyones Olympics', but also misses the opportunity to promote London 2012 as the first green Olympics. http://www.sustainablebrandstrategy.com
