Japanese companies "jumping on the Olympic bandwagon as a publicity vehicle were forced to quickly shift gears" after the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee "sacked an emblem that had become tainted with charges of plagiarism," according to the ASAHI SHIMBUN. Mizuho Financial Group has been using the Tokyo Olympic emblem in signs displayed at airports in Japan. The company is one of the 13 Gold Partners, "the top-tier corporate sponsors" in Japan that are said to have paid $125M each for the right to use that title. A Mizuho official said, "We are now considering moving in the direction of replacing the emblem with one for the Japanese Olympic Committee in the near future." Companies are also working toward removing a total of nine ads with the withdrawn emblem in the arrival lobby of the two terminal buildings at Narita Airport (ASAHI SHIMBUN, 9/2). JIJI reported an official of a sponsor company for the 2020 Olympics said "angrily" on Tuesday, "When (will) a new emblem ... be determined?" That "outrage was a matter of course since sponsor companies have paid massive contract fees to incorporate the logo in their imagery." Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., NEC Corp., Mitsui Fudosan Co. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. removed the emblems they used on their websites and at other places. An official of Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. said, however, that it is "physically impossible to stop, speaking of its emblems-containing train advertisements to be posted from this month." The prefectural government will start consultations "on whether it has to make penalty payments and whether it is possible to request compensation from the organizing committee, according to officials" (JIJI, 9/2).
