How The Web is Influencing the London Olympic Logo

Tying together the 2 previous posts, ie how is the Web influencing UK politics, and what the web can do to help "sort out" the dire 2012 London Olympic Logo (sorry, its now a Brand apparently*) - this is actually a fascinating case study. Reading the commentary in the Times today, it was very even handed between pros and cons - good traditional reporting...you got no sense of the % for and against....no real quantitative info.

So, how is the Web changing Politics?

Well, that this is political is clear as its a huge amount of taxpayers money being spent. Is it being spent wisely?

(i) The Olympic 2012 PR machine has huge sway in the mainstream media, clearly - reading it today you'd think that many people (of more discerning taste ) like the new logo and only a few grubby proles think its rubbish - but they can't spend their way to rolling over the online media.

(ii) So, look on the Web and you see the blogs - the Conversation is hugely against it.

(iii) People are setting up petitions, urging writing to TheyWorkForYou, starting up alternative design competitions - look at the trends here (and the designs, one of the protest ones is the picture for this post):

- opposition is self organising very fast, even a big PR machine can't still it
- promotion of user generated content to showcase the poor design / high cost
- politicians being dragged in via sheer force of numbers to look at "the numbers" - its our money, is it being wisely used is the cry
- points at homework not done despite the fees - London Olympic Games logo is to be removed from the organisers' website after fears it could trigger epileptic fits

Fundamentally, therefore, this is the web driving politics - I suspect this campaign will be typical of early "Web Drives Politics" plays, and will work like this:

- someone botches something and uses influence / money / etc to whitewash the mainstream media
- but they can't shut the blogs up
- there is clear visibility of the protest activity
- politicians are being sucked in because its taxpayers money
- their own reputation starts to get caught up if they don't "do something"

So, Act III - lets see how "Something Must Be Done" plays out.

* almost universally now known as the the Lisa Simpson bj Brand