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Samsung to Olympians: Here's a Gift; Please Use It, Not the Competition's

TMCnet Feature

February 06, 2014

Samsung to Olympians: Here's a Gift; Please Use It, Not the Competition's

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By Rory J. Thompson
Web Editor

If you’re Satya Nadella, the new CEO of Microsoft (News - Alert), you can get away with some things that we mere mortals wouldn’t dare consider. For example, last summer, while presumably on the radar as a CEO candidate, Nadella used a Mac (of all things!) to demo how he believed Microsoft’s cloud, Azure, would be a great choice for programmers. And he did it at the very public BUILD developer conference.


Olympic athletes participating in the winter games at Sochi are enjoying an equally visible platform for the next two weeks, but one company is attempting to muzzle some of them even as it asks them to boost its products.

Samsung (News - Alert), a technology sponsor of the games, has gifted Swiss athletes with free Galaxy Note 3s in the so-called “goodie bags” each participant gets. But there’s a string attached.

According to two Swiss news sites, Samsung is not-so-subtly urging athletes to not use an iPhone (News - Alert) if they have one, or to cover up the Apple logo if they do, so that it doesn’t appear on worldwide TV during the opening ceremonies. In a rough translation of the Swiss news site “Bluewin,” a story on the request reads as follows: “Those who want to attend the ceremony on Friday [and take] photos or videos with a competing product … has to cover [it up]; for example the Apple (News - Alert) logo.”

While it hasn’t been explained how exactly Samsung would enforce such a request, for their part, it doesn’t hurt to ask. The company has invested a lot in the games, and is reportedly making a strong push for the product with ads throughout the event and a strong presence of what it calls its “Galaxy Team” athletes.

Protecting and promoting your brand comes with the territory when you’re at such a high-profile event like the Olympic Games. But when you factor in young athletes, give them a new toy and then attach conditions to it, your plan might be on shaky ground. We’ll just have to wait for the opening march to see what happens. I know I’ll be watching the Swiss team as they come in, if only to see what type of camera-phone they’re using. I’m sure Samsung will be watching closely as well.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi


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