---
title: "Adweek: How Social Media Can Get Brands in Trouble During the Olympics"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/579490dc-de51-4c30-8e2a-912f0518ef0a
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/adweek-how-social-media-can-get-brands-in-trouble-during-the-olympics-5363
category: "Regulation"
topics: ["Regulation & legal"]
published: 2016-08-01T16:11:00.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:36:07.819Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/1c70639fc0b568dabdc18fffe28e6231993160801094311.jpg
---

# Adweek: How Social Media Can Get Brands in Trouble During the Olympics

**TL;DR:** The Olympics' Rule 40 sponsorship guidelines have modified social media rules for businesses, restricting advertising and promotion during the games. Businesses that are not official sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's, are prohibited from using certain trademarked words and phrases on social media during the official blackout period.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2016-08-01. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/adweek-how-social-media-can-get-brands-in-trouble-during-the-olympics-5363).*

## Story

The Olympics will soon set social media on fire, but your business probably won't be able to talk about it.

This year's modifications to the Olympics' Rule 40 sponsorship guidelines have helped some unofficial Olympic sponsors leverage the games in their advertising efforts. But if you're not an official sponsor like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa or P&G, posting about the Olympics on social media during the official blackout period—which started on Wednesday and ends on Aug. 24—can be like doing the 100-yard dash through a minefield.

Here's a sample of the Olympic Committee's many prohibitions against business activity during the games:

1. Businesses can't use any of the Olympics' trademarked words or phrases. These terms include:

- Olympic

- Olympian

- Team USA

- Future Olympian

- Gateway to gold

- Go for the gold

- Let the games begin

- Paralympic

- Pan Am Games

- Olympiad

- Paralympiad

- Pan-American

2. You can't use terms that reference the location of the Olympics, such as:

- Road to Rio

- Road to Pyeongchang

- Road to Tokyo

- Rio 2016

- Pyeongchang 2018

- Tokyo 2020

3. You must not use words that incorporate the word "Olympic," such as Mathlympics, Aqualympics, Chicagolympics, Radiolympics, etc.

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- General (sector)
- McDonald's (company)
- Coke (company)
- olympic sponsorship (topic)
- Olympic Committee (regulator)
- social media rules (topic)
- trademark restrictions (topic)

---
Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/adweek-how-social-media-can-get-brands-in-trouble-during-the-olympics-5363). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/579490dc-de51-4c30-8e2a-912f0518ef0a).