On the first day of Sochi 2014, search engine beheamouth Google took a highly visible stance against Russia’s controversial anti-gay law by rolling out a rainbow and winter sports version of its iconic logo.
The internet giant’s Sochi ‘Google Doodle’ clearly draws creative inspiration from both the Winter Olympics’ official colour scheme and the internationally recognised gay pride flag.
While the Sochi 2014 creative iconography uses a set of colours to represent individual Winter Olympic sports, the Google Doodle only feature the Pride movement’s ‘red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple’ colour set.
The brand-led protest statement, which sits alone on one of the most visited web pages, features a quote from the Olympic Charter
‘The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.’
And links through to the IOC’s charter page.
Comment
Both during the build-up to the Sochi Games and during the event itself, the debate over an apparent conflict between the IOC’s own stated central games principles of the Games and the host nation’s anti-gay laws has remained high profile.
Google’s high profile move certainly generated a huge amount of PR coverage and earned praise from equal rights campaigners.
‘Google has once again proven itself to be a true corporate leader for equality,’ says Chad Griffin from the Human Rights Campaign. ‘Alongside Olympic sponsors like AT&T, Google has made a clear and unequivocal statement that Russia’s anti-LGBT discrimination is indefensible.’
Protest groups also continued to urge and lobby official Olympic sponsors to follow suit.
Links:
Google Doodles
http://www.google.com/doodles/finder/2014/All%20doodles
IOC Olympic Charter
http://www.olympic.org/documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf
