What the McDonald’s Olympics tells us about shyster-friendly Government
YOU’LL have heard of this no chips but McDonald’s chips at the Olympic sites, yes? Because Mickey D’s is the official fast food sponsor of the Games. If people are going to be fed chip butties then they’re going to be from Mickey D’s.
One particular site is complaining in a slightly more sophisticated manner:
Companies like McDonald’s do sponsorship deals all the time. They’re very good at negotiating them. But this isn’t just any old sponsorship deal. It’s a massively important public event, in which it’s a privilege – for spectators, athletes and sponsors – to participate. Every potential sponsor should have been made very strongly aware of that from the outset.
In other words, if LOCOG had been stronger negotiators – if they had been more confident in what they had to offer to sponsors – the Olympics, for God’s sake – then the balance of power would be more even and we would be reading fewer of these depressing stories.
This is true: if only the civil servants who were organising these things had been better at their jobs then it wouldn’t have happened.
But therein lies our problem. These people at McDonald’s do nothing all their lives but negotiate sponsorship contracts. Given that the last Olympics here were in 1948, we’ve not really had the opportunity to develop the expertise.
We also have the point that the Mickey D’s blokes are very interested indeed in the outcome of the contract: our civil servants don’t really care very much. None of them will get or not get a pay rise, promotion or pension as a result of there being two brands of chips on sale: but Mickey’s might well lose such.
And this helps to explain why so much of what government tries to do is done so badly. They don’t know what they’re doing most of the time and they’re not very interested either. That’s how we end up with PFI deals that cost the Moon and the Ministry of Defence has been known as a get rich quick scheme for shysters for four centuries now.
Posted: 13th, July 2012 | In: Money Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
