A common mistake many companies make in doing business overseas involves failure to apply different marketing strategies to the dominant cultures. To acquire new markets and win new consumers, companies must research and understand these cultural differences to avoid cultural faux pas and potentially offending the very customers they hope to attract. A great example of this is the Olympic 2012 logo created by Wolff Olins.

The London Olympic 2012 logo suffered lashing from Iran. Iran found the logo offensive and threatened to boycott the Games if the logo is not changed. Bahram Afsharzadeh, Secretary-General of Iran’s National Olympic Committee, sent a letter to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Roggue, stating the logo was racist. Bahram Afsharzadeh explained that the logo spells out the word ‘Zion’ which means the city of Jerusalem. Zionism is a Jewish political movement supporting the self-determination of Jewish people in their national homeland. Iran was incredibly outraged by the logo and London’s resistance to removing it. Iran urged all Muslim states to oppose the logo.

The logo was a year in the making and the London Olympic Committee was surprised that only now there was a complaint about it. The IOC stated, “The London 2012 logo represents the figure 2012, nothing else.” If indeed the logo creates an attack toward Iran, whether intentional or not, obviously Wolff Olins should have done a little more research to avoid this debacle.

Author: Brittany Whittaker