KAYSVILLE ? A few miles south of the Olympic Village, inside a factory perfumed with raspberries, a 240-pound lip balm arises from its cylinder to combat the uncontrollable lip flaking of 3,500 Winter Games athletes.
They can't pucker up just yet. The 4-foot-high Chap-Grip Leashable lip balm, a promotional gimmick from local balm-maker Symbiosis Inc., has been banned as a potential marketing menace by the International Olympic Committee.
Sixty-five corporations shelled out $4.5 billion to the IOC to officially link their goods and services with the 2002 Games. The Chap-Grip Leashable lacks the coveted, and costly, title of Official Olympic Lip Balm ? leaving Symbiosis founder Brady Anderton out in the cold.
"It isn't wise to mess with Olympic marketing," warns IOC marketing director Michael Payne. "We protect the rights of our sponsors."
In a world of terrorist tension, an Olympic ruckus over the behemoth balm may seem trivial. But ever since Greek merchants offered up 500 sheep to help underwrite the cost of the ancient Games, sponsorship has been the Olympics' cash cow. Official Branded Beef was as much part of the Olympics as lawsuits between sponsors and outsiders looking to tap into rights packages worth $10 million to $65 million.
IOC sponsors this year include Diamond of California Inc., Official Nut Supplier of the 2002 Winter Games. "The Olympics come at a very good time for our company," says Sandy McBride, Diamond's communications director. "The New England Journal of Medicine says walnuts are very high in omega-3 fatty acids important for reducing cholesterol and the threat of heart disease."
Whatever the financial threat posed by the $46,372 berry-flavored balm, the IOC aims to legally neutralize the Olympic marketing hopes of the Chap-Grip Leashable.
That's good news for the folks at Nu Skin Enterprises Inc., who paid $20 million to control the Official Olympic Skin Care and Hair Products Personal Fragrances Color Cosmetics and Toiletries sponsorship category.
Nu Skin makes Sunright brand lip balm, and the company is concerned that the 27-gallon tube of Chap-Grip Leashable might overshadow its pocket-sized Olympic giveaways.
"Sunright is the only officially licensed lip balm, and we have thousands of samples in the hands of athletes, coaches and spectators," says Kara Schneck, Nu Skin's director of personal care public relations.
For the Olympics, Nu Skin has squeezed $300,000 worth of beeswax, exotic oils and French seaweed extract into 110,000 screw-operated cylinders that normally retail for $5.50.
Wandering the Symbiosis production line in cowboy hat and Hawaiian shirt, the 34-year-old Anderton says he isn't worried about his competitor's vanilla-flavored balm.
Nu Skin last year sold 100,000 tubes of Sunright, he said, a trickle compared with 3 million wax sticks and $6 million in sales for Symbiosis. Chap-Grip was No. 5 on the 2001 AC Nielsen Item Rank Report for lip balms, he said. Industry leader Chap Stick holds the top four slots, though Anderton says their top-selling flavors are for old folks.
"I was cool to go for the Olympic sponsorship, but the organizers wanted $50,000 up front and a major dude piece of our sales action," he says. "We have 30 employees and all we make is lip balm. It was too much money."
Anderton, who was a ski and snowboard instructor, says extreme sports fans and athletes made Chap-Grip famous. To solve the problem of lost lip balm, Anderton packaged his plastic tubes in spongy cushions with key chain clips. Not only is Chap-Grip "the coolest thing for dry lips," he said, "it's a fashion accessory."
The gang at the Dead Goat Saloon in Salt Lake City seems to agree. On a recent evening, two men shooting a rack of eight ball had Chap-Grips snapped to their beards; a table of Australian Olympians had the balms lashed to their jackets.
Still, Anderton won't find it easy to hand out Chap-Grip samples in the Olympic village or slip his Olympic-sized model into the site. He needs a forklift and special scaffolding to haul the delicate balm aboard his "ChapMobile," a land yacht gussied up to resemble a Chap-Grip on wheels, and Olympic marketing police are everywhere.
Not all IOC officials are unsympathetic to his plight. Chris Welton, managing director of Meridian Management SA, the IOC's marketing arm, says youth-oriented companies like Symbiosis must be wooed into the Olympic tent if the organization hopes to attract younger audiences.
"There are a lot of companies we'd like to have associated with the Olympics, but we know they can't afford the sponsorship," Welton said. "The financial foundation of Olympic sponsorship is now stable enough to pursue products that are popular with young consumers. This is a category of sponsorship we intend to seriously explore if the company can help us achieve goals other than financial."