Surprise! Ambushers top Olympic sponsors.

Every two years the International Olympic Committee pledges to crack down on ambush marketers. And yet every two years it seems those ambushers still get the better of many official sponsors.

A new analysis from the Global Language Monitor, a web media trend tracking company, finds that of the top 50 brands affiliated with the upcoming London Games, only 17 of them are official sponsors.

GLM measured the strength of the brand affiliation for each official Olympic sponsor against those of their primary non-affiliated competitors.

The top 12 marketers are all non-affiliated, in that they have no official tie to the Olympics, much as they've tried to make it seem otherwise.

Royal Philips, CVC Capital and Exxon Mobil top the list. GLM notes that Royal Philips is besting official sponsor General Electric by a 20:1 margin.

"Ambushing by 'non-affiliated marketers' is more than Michael Phelps pitching sandwiches," says the GLM study, referring to Subway's long-running ads with the Olympic medalist. "It is a years-long effort to create a pseudo-sponsorship to leverage the good-well generated by having the Olympics with one's brand."
 

Tags: ads, General Electric, GLM, Global Language Monitor, International Olympic Committee, london games, media, michael phelps, Royal Philips, web