Top Secret: Durex's Olympic Condoms

The more than 10,000 athletes at this year’s London Olympics will receive free condoms in the Olympic Village from Durex, the world’s top-selling brand and part of England’s Reckitt Benckiser Group. But Reckitt Benckiser isn’t trumpeting its tie to the event, traditionally a marketing bonanza for big brands such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. “We’re restricted by the Olympics’ organizing committee guidelines on what we can and can’t say,” says company spokeswoman Andraea Dawson-Shepherd.

That’s because Reckitt Benckiser isn’t one of the companies that have plunked down £1 billion ($1.6 billion) to be official sponsors of the London Games. Among those is Procter & Gamble, whose household products compete fiercely with Reckitt Benckiser’s around the world. To protect its partners, the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has cracked down on non-sponsors trying to hijack the Games through ambush or guerrilla marketing.