Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

Catchy is not a selling strategy. What you need is a RELEVANT name; one with related APPEAL.

What's the name of your school? What exactly does the event fund? Are you celebrating a specific year or number in terms of the popularity of your event? What's the connection between your town and the venue of the Games this year?

Although it's tempting to hitch your promotional wagon to the Olympic Games, the name "Olympic" and the interlocking circle logo are registered trademarks. This means it would be both unwise and illegal to use either in your promotional material.

You might want to consider having a summer theme, one of surf boards, palm trees, and sand castles. Why? Because no one will be expecting this approach, which will make your event stand out all the more from the plethora of Olympic, MLK, and Valentine's Day events.

You could use some reference to "Gold Medal," but the real question is why would you want to use the borrowed interest of the Olympics or the season instead of the benefit someone in your target audience should expect from supporting your cause.

Substance is stronger than "catchy."

Dinner With Champions
Funding Winners

Gary's spot on with the tradenaming of the Olympics - but I can see no reason not to use "Olympia" which has immediate connotations. The other direction is to use "Sochi" which is the town in which the winter Olympic games are being held.

"Dining out in Sochi" [with Russian dishes ... !]
Olympia and Sochi

Do you like this approach?

Thank you all for the responses. We want to use the Olympic theme in order to promote the multicultural education we offer at our international Montessori school. We have many families from over 20 countries and they could, should they choose, dress in attire from their country. The facility in which we are holding the event is a licensed Olympic-viewing location and we can be streaming live Olympic coverage during our event. In our area, there are relatively few fundraising events and no one offers this type of theme. We understand and will follow the trademark regulations.