Platform:Depending on your point of view, the London 2012 logo looks bold, "street", like vomit or recalls a group sex session containing at least three of The Simpsons, writes  Richard Gillis.

This week the design agency, Wolff Olins, was out justifying its £400,000 commission.

The agency's chief said the design had a "sparkiness, a sort of dissonance [ and a] slight uncomfortableness".

London 2012's first two sponsors will be feeling pretty uncomfortable too.

LloydsTSB and EDF Energy have each paid £80 million to have their brands linked for five years to the bold/street/vomit logo.

Because of the rules relating to the use of the Olympic rings, the Wolffe Olins meisterwerk is pretty much all they have to build an association between themselves and the London games.

As a result, it will appear on every piece of marketing literature, every television advertisement, every bank envelope from now until well into the next decade.

The anti-Olympic lobby was outraged when the British government's culture secretary Tessa Jowell announced last year that the budget for building the Olympic Park had increased by £900 million to £3.3 billion.

The total cost of the games is currently put at £10 billion and rising.

As the estimates rise, so does the pressure on Lord Sebastian Coe and his LOCOG team to bring in the cash to pay for it.

At the heart of their strategy is £2 billion they plan to raise from sponsorship in Britain. There are eight categories of sponsors in all, with telecoms, insurance, automotive, airline, sportswear and utilities making up the rest of the top tier.

Below this group are second and third-tier sponsors, the fees not yet set by LOCOG.

In all, more than 50 companies will seek some form of official association with the London games.

The £80 million figure quoted is to be treated with care. Sponsorship rights fees are routinely inflated when released to the media, helping to benchmark the value of a property in future negotiations. But whatever the precise figure, London 2012 represents a considerable investment for would-be sponsors.

But what is it they are buying?

The "sell" to the business community is that the Olympics transcends sport.

The notion of Olympism is a mix of human endeavour, personal sacrifice and goodwill to your fellow man. Who wouldn't want a bit of that?

For faceless bureaucracies such as banks or utilities companies, the Olympics is a chance to be the good guy, the heroic patriot supporting good causes.

However, the central problem for any London 2012 sponsor will be to ensure they stand out from the crowd.

The task of establishing an emotional connection with the Olympics is hindered by the lack of natural media exposure associated with the property.

For example, there will be no branding at, or around, the event and severe restrictions on the use of the iconic five rings in the run-up to 2012.

This means that if LloydsTSB wants everyone to know they are the official bank of the games, they will have to shout about it themselves. This means paying for media time, and it is very feasible that the total cost to LloydsTSB of its involvement in the Olympics will reach well beyond £250 million.

A further consideration is the presence in the market of the International Olympic Committee's own partners. Up to 12 TOP (The Olympic Partner Programme) sponsors, including Samsung, Coca-Cola and General Electric, have paid for the right to promote themselves using the Olympic logo.

In practical terms, Lloyds' exploitation of the 2012 banking and financial services category must not conflict with Visa, the IOC's credit card category partner.

Opinion is divided as to the effect of all this activity on the UK and European sponsorship market, which is the engine of the sports and arts economies.

The positive spin is that the Olympics will encourage companies into sponsorship that had not previously considered it as part of their marketing plans. The counter view is less positive. The games are so vast in commercial terms, so complex and such a huge opportunity, it threatens to suck the life out of the rest of the sponsorship market.

Sports that fall outside of the Olympic tent may struggle to build a business case for support from corporate UK. The chances of LloydsTSB putting their name to any other sports event, team or individual over the next few years just got slimmer.

And for this example there are many others coming down the track over the next couple of years.

So regardless of your views on the logo, it's one you will be seeing for a good while yet. In the words of Wolffe Olins "it's going to change your relation with sport, art and culture".

And a few businesses too, no doubt.