Today's Brandlympics round-up is brought to you by fencing, as celebrated in Google's daily logo salute to the sports of the London 2012 Summer Olympics:

Nike "Greatness" Unchallenged by LOCOG

Nike pushed right up against all the rules that the Olympic organizers have been saying protect its sponsors when it released a tongue-in-cheek campaign last week that featured athletes in London across the globe (except for England) with a British commentator noting that greatness wasn’t just happening at one particular place. It was clearly a sly bit of ambush marketing, tweaking the Games in London (and rival Adidas, the Games' official sponsor) and giving a shout-out to all the average-Joe athletes around the planet, which is amusing since Nike is partially responsible for the insane-celebrity athletic culture we all live in. According to the Guardian, London’s Organizing Committee has said that it won’t attempt to take any legal action against Nike. Why not? Well, the ad campaign technically doesn’t break any rules because it never mentions the Olympics by name and doesn’t suggest that it is a sponsor of the Games in any way. Whatever consumers want to think, well, that is their business. Hello, halo effect.Continue reading...

Australia's Qantas is expanding into Asia with a joint venture between budget carrier Jetstar and China Eastern airlines. The new regional discount airline, to be branded as Jetstar Hong Kong, will launch as HK's first low-cost carrier in mid-2013. Qantas also just announced it's launching Australia's first commercial flights using biofuels, with the first flight using SkyNRG's World Wildlife Fund-endorsed sustainable fuel scheduled for April 13th.