The Anchor Plate : Intellectual Property Lawyers & Attorneys : BrickHouse Law Group : Open-Price Lawyering, Hourly Billing : St. Louis, Missouri

As brand representatives, Olympic mascots must:

• embody Olympic spirit;
• communicate and support the mission of the Olympic games (for both the International Olympic Committee and the local organizing committee);
• promote the history, culture, and geography of the host city;
• build the festive feeling of the event; and,
• enegage the public, particularly children. 

Some have been more effective than others. Most seem to be criticized, such as in this recent piece by Shane Igoe on ESPN's Page 2. Some are praised, but not everyone can agree on what works and what doesn't. Although the mascots for the 2012 Olympic Games will not be unveiled until later this year, the London 2012 Organising Committee is focused on its brand and the BBC has a great article explaining the challenges in Olympic mascot design that incorporates input from the designer of the "much-reviled 1996 mascot."

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) is just as brand conscious. VANOC has explained why it thinks mascot selection is important and its website has interviews with three influential designers about mascot creation and selection (Brad Copeland, Javier Marsical, and Leo Obstbaum).

VANOC undertook an international design search and ultimately chose Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy who create together as MEOMI, VANOC selected three and a half mascots to promote its Vancouver 2010 brand. The three main mascots are:

• Miga - a sea bear - part killer whale, part bear who loves to surf and snowboard;
• Quatchi - a Sasquatch, who takes pictures and dreams of being a hockey goalie; and 
• Sumi - an animal spirit who loves alpine skiing and has the wings of a Thunderbird and the legs of a black bear.

These three are accompanied by Mukmuk, who is not considered an official mascot, and is just a "sidekick." Mukmuk is a marmot - normally hibernating in the winter - who likes to eat, burrow and make friends. Mukmuk is intened to have an online presence only.

The challenge for Olympic mascots is the tight timeline to introduce and build goodwill in the mascots sufficient to achieve their branding purposes and to capitalize on the substantial investment and see a return. According to Sports Illustrated, organizing committees like VANOC may earn up to a third of their revenue from merchandising and licensing mascots. This is big money when you consider the $250 million  in sales of 1996 Atlanta's Izzy was considered disappointing.

With this much money at stake, brand protection and enforcement is important. VANOC knows this and has a detailed program to protect its brand. Although designed with special consideration for Canadian law and, in particular, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act, the well-written plan for protecting the brand is a useful, practical document for anybody concerned with protecting their brand. VANOC has put it together in a nice brochure (Real 2010 Protecting the Brand - pdf) that undoubtedly helps assure VANOC's merchandising and licensing partners that the mascots in which they invest will be remain valuable.

Unfortunately, it is easier to plan to protect a character's value than it is to actually protect that value. As I have discovered with my nine-year-old, the Olympics are mostly attended and watched by adults. The mascots can engage children and mascot merchandise will be bought by parents if it does. Thus, the mascots need to appeal to both. 

VANOC seemed to have done well in that regard. Vancouver news reported that before VANOC chose Miga, Quatchi, and Sumi, focus groups in Vancouver, Toronto, and Seattle "showed the characters were universally liked by all age groups." Importantly, "All of the mascots were considered fun, cute and friendly and parents universally considered them appropriate for their children."

But, not everyone liked the new mascots. Last summer, Michael Barrick, already critical of the public money being spent on the games, concluded that the mascots were stylistically similar to "Pedobear," inserted an image of Pedobear into a piece of fan art of the mascots, and posted it to his blog. The first problem is that Pedobear is an Internet meme used to "out" suspected pedophiles. Essentially, Pedobear is used as a cartoon representation of a pedophile who lures away innocent children. 

The second problem is that the Pedobear image has caught on and been picked up in European press (Polish, Dutch, and German) and used when discussing the offcial mascots. It is unlear what action VANOC could take to reverse this. And, now that North America has noticed, the Vancouver Province blogged to explain the the mistake, and then, without explanation, posted the offending image in Sunday's paper on C2. It has been reported on by the Telegraph in the UK and picked up by BoingBoing. 

It is not clear what action could be taken under Canadian law. In the U.S., as a noncommercial work, VANOC would likely have no dilution claim against the creator. But, given the actual confusion, might have a strong infringement claim. Even so, practically speaking, such action might have been useful last summer before the art spread, but is probably too late to do any good now.

We'll have to wait and see if this has any economic impact on the mascots for these games. Either way, my son thinks they are cute.