TURIN, Italy — The company that manufactured the toilets in use inside Pinerolo Palaghiaccio, the curling site for the 2006 Winter Olympics, is not an official Olympic sponsor, so anyone using the restrooms inside the arena has been seeing strips of gray tape placed strategically over porcelain.
The same tape has been plastered over sponsor patches on skiers' jackets in Sestriere and the brand names on television monitors inside numerous venues, anywhere an unapproved corporate logo might appear.
When asked how many rolls of tape had been spread across these Games, Cecilia Gandini, an organizing committee executive, laughed and said, "I don't know how many meters, but it means we've been working quite hard."
While thousands of athletes have skied, skated and sledded at more than a dozen venues for the last two weeks, Gandini and her office for brand protection have been engaged in a different type of competition: scrutinizing every inch of snow and ice to be sure that only the right logos, in the right places, adorn these Games.
The reason is twofold:
* The International Olympic Committee reaps hundreds of millions in sponsorship dollars, in part, by promising corporations a certain exclusivity. Heaven forbid that an unofficial -- and unpaid for -- logo sneaks into view of fans or, worse, television cameras.
* At the same time, despite enormous revenues, IOC officials seek to avoid appearing too commercialized.
"This is a hyper-sensitive issue," said Scott Becher, a Florida sports marketer who has worked extensively with Olympic organizations. "They're going to do whatever they can to protect their investment."
Eleven major corporations, ranging from McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo and Canadian insurer Manulife, are paying about $80 million each to be top-tier Olympic sponsors from 2005 through 2008.
Category exclusivity is a big part of what allows the IOC to command such lofty sums.
When Panasonic executives sign a deal for their product to be the official television of the Olympics, they know that no other manufacturer can make that claim. At these Games, wherever there is a Sony monitor -- in pressrooms and inside venues -- tape covers the name.
And because Samsung makes the official Olympic cellphone, no other brand is recognized.
