• The Big Lead, Thursday, July 28, 2011 8:30 AM

Most of the official marketing partners of the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games are marking the one-year-to-go date of the 2012 Summer Games with marketing and/or activation.

In London, official partners British Airways, BP, Holiday Inn, Lloyds Bank, McDonald's, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Samsung, Thomas Cook and Visa are already talking up their plans and running early ads.

In the U.S., among the marketing partners that will highlight the fact that the Olympic Games will begin on July 27, 2012, are Allstate, Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser), BMW, Citi, Coca-Cola, GE, Hilton, Nike and United Airlines. McDonald's, P&G and Visa are among the companies that have both USOC and IOC official affiliations. A total of 15,000 athletes from more than 200 countries will compete in the Olympic and Parlaympic Games next summer.

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