At a press event in London Monday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) launched its official, advertisement-free Facebook page, reported The Telegraph.
Just as the Olympic stadium will be a “clean venue” with no advertisements, the official Facebook page of the Games includes no advertisements.
Advertising with the Olympics comes at a premium price, so the IOC did not want companies to be able to associate themselves with the Olympics at a discounted price through Facebook page ads, thereby diluting the brand identity of the Olympic Games.
The new official Facebook page includes athlete profiles for 200 of the most prominent athletes set to compete in the Games. The page also includes pages for each sport and a history of the Games.
At the time of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Facebook had 100 million users. Today the number is closer to 900 million, so Facebook hopes this year’s Games will be the first “truly social” Olympics.
Facebook’s arrangement with the IOC is a non-commercial one, according to the IOC.