LONDON — Companies gearing up for rounds of guerilla marketing by hiring flesh-baring streakers to advertise their products at the 2012 Summer Olympics will face huge fines and even jail.
The U.K. Department for Culture, Media and Sport, or DCMS, is outlawing "advertising on the human body," a common sight at most porn events, including industry conventions and video rollout parties, and a not-so-common sight at sporting events on both sides of the Atlantic.
Streakers caught at the Olympics — in and around the events — face fines of £20,000, or about $30,000, and criminal prosecution.
And, according to the DCMS, perpetrators will be presumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence.
The move to create an Olympics "clean venue" policy, a DCMS source told the London Evening Standard, is to protect the investment of paying sponsorships.
There are plenty of examples of guerilla marketers employing streaking at top sporting events, including a 2002 New Zealand rugby tournament that was halted by a streaker wearing nothing but the Vodafone brand painted on his body. At a 1997 golf tourney, a naked woman in tiger stripes ran across the green to support Tiger Woods.
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