Dr Dre has succeeded in gatecrashing the London 2012 Olympics with an ambush marketing campaign that has seen British athletes including Laura Robson and Tom Daley endorse the rapper and music entrepreneur's Beats headphones range.
The brand, which is not an official sponsor of the International Olympic Committee or London 2012, has skirted strict rules on ambush marketing by sending British team members special versions of the Beats range branded with union flag colours.
Tennis player Laura Robson tweeted about receiving her headphones, although the post now appears to have been removed from her Twitter account, as did football goalkeeper Jack Butland, who tweeted: "Love my GB Beats by Dre."
Butland revealed in a message to another GB footballer, Karen Carney, that a Beats representative visited the team hotel on Monday, tweeting: "They are around, I'm sure they'll bump into you guys soon."
Beats headphones have been almost ubiquitous in the Aquatics Centre with swimmers including Michael Phelps using them to block background noise before races.
The stunt is unlikely to go down well with lawyers at Locog or the IOC, who have strict rules to protect official sponsors who have paid tens of millions of pounds for the exclusive right to exploit their association with the event.
In addition, guidance issued before the Olympics by the IOC stated that athletes were not permitted to promote any brand, product or service within a blog or tweet or otherwise on any social media platforms or on any websites.
The IOC and Locog had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. The official sponsor that is most likely to feel most aggrieved by the stunt is Panasonic.
England football players used the Dr Dre headphones at Euro 2012 to avoid the press. The headphones grew in popularity at the Beijing 2008 Olympics after the company gave them to basketball star LeBron James and he gave them out to members of Team USA.
The ambush marketing initiative comes on the heels of a protest – initiated by US athletes including 400m runner Sanya Richards-Ross – criticising rule 40 of the IOC code of conduct. The rule forbids athletes from mentioning their personal sponsors on social media during the games.
Dawn Harper, the Olympic 100m hurdles champion, posted a picture on Twitter of her track and field teammates and the statement: "I am honored to be an Olympian, but #wedemandchange #rule40." She also posted a picture of herself with tape over her mouth emblazoned with the words "rule 40".
On Friday, legal advisers to Locog decided not to take action against a global ad campaign by Nike, which is not an official 2012 sponsor, that featured everyday athletes competing in places around the world named London.
Giving insight into Locog's thinking, and perhaps whether not its legal team will react differently to Dr Dre's Beats headphones stunt, a spokesman said at the time: "Our approach to enforcing the 2006 Act has always been sensible, pragmatic and proportionate.
"We have to protect the rights of our sponsors, who have paid for exclusive associations with the Games in their sponsorship categories. We are tough on commercial abuse, but we don't want to do anything to dampen genuine enthusiasm and excitement about the Games."
Locog has also dropped its pursuit of Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, which is running a cheeky billboard campaign that trumpets its sponsorship of a sports event in London, France, but is still considering action against an in-store campaign by Oddbins.
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