Forget football. Can we win the merchandise cup?

The 2010 World Cup will be remembered not just for its football, but for its atmosphere—and more precisely for the vuvuzela, the noisy South African horn capable of creating a 120-decibel drone reminiscent of wasps trapped in a washing machine.

It’s a marketing success that will not have gone unnoticed at the UK’s Olympic Delivery Authority, tasked with identifying signature merchandise for the 2012 Games. Its inspiration to date has been limited to Canadian mittens: a cool 3m pairs of red gloves, branded with a maple leaf, were sold during the 2010 Winter Olympics, becoming something of a sensation following an appearance on Oprah. And while any profits from vuvuzelas go to the horn’s manufacturers, the glove money was pocketed by the Canadian Olympic Committee. That’s what the ODA is after: the right merchandise could help pay for a chunk of the £7bn athletic spectacle. So what can we expect? Olympic Uggs? A branded kazoo? Boris Johnson wigs? The products might be frivolous, but the search is earnest.

This article originally appeared in the July 2010 edition of Prospect.