Local brewery opens fight
Salt Lake Olympic officials target ambush marketers
Posted: Friday August 07, 1998 10:42 AM
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Guardians of the 2002 Winter Olympics
trademarks have launched a campaign warning businesses that use of
the familiar rings or other logos won't be tolerated.
The announcement Thursday by a senior United States Olympic
Committee official comes amid a standoff with a local brewery that
has called itself the “unofficial beer” of the 2002 Games.
While Wasatch Brewery is hardly a competitive threat to official
beer sponsor Anheuser-Busch, Olympic sponsors aren't amused by the
local company's cavalier attitude toward what they say is illegal.
”It's cheating, pure and simple,” USOC deputy secretary
general John Krimsky said.
Krimsky, who also heads the USOC's marketing arm, said he is
launching a campaign to educate Utah consumers and businesses about
“ambush” marketing by companies that want to profit off the
Olympics without helping finance the billion-dollar event.
Those companies violate federal and local trademark and
licensing laws and dilute the value of an Olympic sponsorship, he
said. Anheuser-Busch paid more than $50 million to sponsor the
Olympics.
Krimsky said it is his job to protect that investment, 70
percent of which goes to fund the Olympics and support the
athletes.
While Krimsky said ambush marketing schemes become more
sophisticated every Olympics, the sole agitator to surface so far
for 2002 is Wasatch Brewery.
Olympics organizers are attempting to stop the brewery's owner,
Schirf Brewing Co., from displaying the phrase “Wasatch Beers. The
Unofficial Beer, 2002 Winter Games” on one of its trucks.
Schirf has been warned by Salt Lake Organizing Committee lawyers
that “all commercial uses of words relating to the Olympic Games,
including indirect references,” belong to the USOC and must be
removed.
Brewery owner and founder Greg Schirf said he isn't budging.
He said the Olympics organizers are taking themselves too
seriously by claiming ownership of the words “Games” and
“2002.”
“Our contention is we were careful not to use the word
Olympics,” Schirf said. “No one has claim on 2002 and everyone
uses the word games.”
Schirf is pushing the controversy a step further by marketing a
beer labeled “Wasatch Unofficial 2002 Amber Ale.”
The USOC hopes to enlist the public in its fight with print
advertisements that ask readers, “How do you feel about cheating
in the Olympic Games?”
The ads are designed so the name of a company can be inserted
along with a telephone number readers can call to express their
displeasure.
Schirf claims he already has the public backing him.
He said the delivery truck branded with the slogan elicits honks
and waves, while the company offices continue to receive e-mail and
phone calls encouraging them not to back down.
Schirf doesn't know how long he can continue to afford to fight
Olympic organizers. But he revealed what could make him cave in to
organizers.
”We don't want to make a deal. We just want to have some fun,”
he said. “The only way we will acquiesce is if they make us drink
Budweiser.”
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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