When I think about it, I’m actually kinda surprised that Budweiser isn’t “The official beer of America” or that Nike isn’t “The official shoe of America.” It would be a good way for the gov’t to generate revenue that doesn’t involve taxation.
Even if America doesn’t do it, do other countries? I realize there’s something insidiously tasteless and maybe even corrupt about it, but that makes me wonder why, say, Tecaté (or maybe Corona) isn’t “The official beer of Mexico”.
It’s a given that a communist government owned monopoly is the country’s “official [whatever].” I’m talking about a situation where there are multiple companies making a given product in a single country and they bid against each other for the right to call themselves their country’s “official [whatever]” with the money going straight to the government. I’d expect they’d get to call themselves that for a year or two and then have to resubmit bids for the following 1-2 year period.
It wouldn’t surprise me too much if, say, Nestle were to pay to become “the official food company of Switzerland.”
Are there any examples of this actually happening? If not why? It can’t be a matter of bad taste, there’s too much revenue and marketing power involved on both sides for mere propriety to prevent it from happening. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any laws here in the US that would prevent Bank of America from paying the US treasury a billion dollars to call itself “The official bank of the United States” for a few years.