Athletes told to cover up their iPhone Apple logos at the Olympics

UPDATE: Samsung and IOC denies ordering athletics on branding cover up.

The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics is a huge sporting event where it attracts big name sponsors. Samsung is one of their partners and the Galaxy Note 3 is the official device for the sporting event.

It was reported that each athlete were given a brand new Galaxy Note 3 but in exchange, they are told to hide or cover branding of their personal non-Samsung phones. The ruling apparently was revealed by the Swiss Olympic team and they were requested to cover Apple logos on their iPhones so that it won’t be seen during the opening ceremony that’s broadcasted live worldwide. Fortunately the branding cover up rule only applies to the athletes.

While this is seen to be a harsh move by Samsung, it looks like they are not giving any chance for competitors to hijack their well spent sponsorship at the Winter Olympics. International sports sponsorship is very expensive and usually it is limited to 1 brand per industry. In the past, there are countless of ambush marketing campaigns performed by non-Olympic sponsors prompting organisers to issue fines to those who tried to associate themselves with the games through unconventional means.

As for the athletes and telling them what to do with their personal belongings is just a little bit too much. Besides, most people would have been using covers and even if they don’t, people could tell its an iPhone from the shape anyway.

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