Pic of the Day: This billboard beside the Olympic village mightn’t go down too well

The extremely anal branding restrictions surrounding the upcoming Olympics deserve to be ridiculed and ridiculed they were by a clever poster located close to the Olympic village.

Companies who are looking to cash in on the Olympics in London but aren’t prepared to compete with huge corporate bigwigs like McDonalds for official sponsorship have had to be very careful in recent times for fear that they might breach some of the incredibly detailed branding restrictions relating to the XXX Olympiad.

As a result, a hotel chain in London looking to attract visitors or a food chain looking to attract diners have to be very careful in the language they use as part of their marketing campaigns, with a wide list of phrases such as ‘Olympics’, ‘Summer Games’ and eh, ‘Citius Altius Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger in layman’s terms)’ available only to those who have splashed out the big bucks to become official partners of the games.

Consequently, companies in the English capital have had to be creative in how they refer to the Olympics, with ridiculous equivalent phrases such as ‘London’s big event’ and ‘London’s summer of sport’ used even though only a fool wouldn't know what they're talking about.

It all seems a tad far-fetched and it was nice to see some fun being poked at the policy in a billboard appropriately beside the Olympic village for maximum exposure and impact (see below).

Pic via Twitter/Andrew Bloch

By the time you read this, it will probably have been removed, but it’s encouraging to see that there are some people out there rebelling against the increasingly influential corporate culture in sport; after all, it’s hardly what the Olympics are all about.