Cadbury in pre-Olympic sports drive

By Jess Laury

Cadbury is planning a multimillion-pound push called `Spots V Stripes’ which includes the public participating in a series of games in the run up to the Olympic games 2012.

Phil Rumbol, the Cadburys marketing director, will aim to “embrace the ethos of the Olympics in all of us” and to promote its tier two sponsorship in advance of the games. The firm will provide £20m on top of the £410m of private money already secured in aid of the event. Cadburys plan to promote their two-tier sponsorship with the start of pre-Olympics sport drive and Cadburys are also providing confectionery and ice creams sold at Olympic Park.

The National Obesity Forum, an organisation that raises awareness of the growing health problems, criticised the new deal saying that “Cadburys involvement was incongruous with the wider message of healthy living for which the Games is supposed to be a vehicle”, NOF have raised their concerns that the sponsorship is encouraging children to eat chocolate because it is part of the promotion of unhealthy food for children.

The claim was denied by chief executive of London 2012, Paul Deighton, who says, “Previous games have had chocolate and confectionary suppliers and like most sporting events, confectionary is available to buy at Olympic games- that is where we started.”