Ambush Marketing
Ambush Marketing: Friend or Foe?
Ambush marketing is a term that describes a marketing campaign occurring around an event, lets say for example, the 2010 world cup in South Africa. Ambush marketing aims to gain association with the World Cup by piggybacking off the good will associated with the event and its good reputation and without the organisers receiving any money. Such activities aren’t limited to soccer but can be found in a wide variety of mostly sporting events including in Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics and even GAA (Gaelic Football and Hurling for my international readers).
Beijing 2008
In the run up to large sporting events, such as the Olympics, brands pay a lot of money to become the official sponsor of a product category (such as soft drink, sportswear, technology and so on). For the 2008 Beijing Olympics the TOP (The Olympic Partner) program of 12 sponsors paid a total of $866 million for the privilege of exclusivity. These same companies also spent a further $1.2 billion on supporting marketing activities. Yet for all this cash, recognition of these brands as the official sponsor was rated below 40% amongst consumers in a post games survey. For example Coke spent a total of $400 million on marketing in Beijing in 2008, including $85 million to be a TOP sponsor, yet up to 60% of consumers believed Pepsi was the official sponsor. Now a 40% recognition rate may seem very low for the money spent, Coca Cola were one of the sponsors who fared better as other TOP brands such as Adidas and McDonalds achieved even lower recognition of their official sponsor status
How Ambush Marketing Is Being Tackled
While ambush marketing dates back to the 1980’s, the governments of China, United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada have introduced anti ambush marketing laws to combat this growing threat. After all if the organisers cannot guarantee exclusivity to sponsors, the sponsorship will be less attractive, the value will decline and the organising body loses out. Such is the magnitude of the threat, sports organisations and their political counterparts have embarked on an extensive and elaborate plans to foil would be ambushers.
Some examples of Ambush marketing and responses
- In the 2002 Winter Olympics Budweiser paid $50 million to be the official sponsor and use the word Olympic and the five ring logo. A small local beer company responded with the slogan ‘Wasutch Beers. The Unofficial Beer. 2002 Winter Games’. No logo, no official wording used, no law suit, yet Wasutch was associated with the games.
- Since 2004 FIFA have been laying the groundwork to combat ambush marketers for the 2010 World Cup. Their first scalp was that of a South African sports bar earlier this summer
- This blog post outlines the words that cannot be used in relation to the 2010 world cup. Even playing the location, South Africa, beside the year, 2010, constitutes ambush marketing.
- At the 2006 World Cup in Germany over 1,000 Dutch fans arrived at the stadium in Stuttgart. FIFA refused them entry as they were wearing branded pants for the beer company Bavaria, when the official sponsor was Budweiser. They were allowed to enter the stadium after removing the offending item of clothing… and so they all watched the game in their underwear
- Nike is a firm that regularly uses ambush tactics, they often opt to sponsor entire teams that will gain much exposure such as Brazil in the World Cup. In a study carried out after the 2002 world cup respondents were asked to choose an official sponsor from a list of 45 possibilities. 20% of those asked chose Nike. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Nike spent $50 million on buying a large portion of the cities billboards again most people identified Nike as an official sponsor
- In 2008 UEFA threatened to take legal action against a group of students who, as part of a class project, produced a European Championships watch
- In China in 2008 all advertising by non-official sponsors in large public places were either removed or taken down for the duration of the games.
- For the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver has introduced tough anti ambush marketing laws that will allow city officials to remove or halt any ambush marketing activities. This includes activities on commercial premises with fines up to $10,000. Some critics have suggested this could affect civil liberties as anti Olympic protestors may also be targeted.l
- Ambush Marketing has affected sports closer to home. In 2006 the GAA were embroiled in a battle with its players association (the GPA). Both bodies had official drinks, the GAA was Lucozade Sport and the GPA Club Energise. The GAA prevented the GPA’s drink from buying advertising in and around its club grounds, while Club Energise was given out free outside of almost a dozen championship matches. Prior to this the Irish national broadcaster, RTE, was also embroiled in a war with the GPA over unofficial product placement of Club Energise during post match interviews.
Ambush Marketing: Friend or Foe?
The main question that one must ask is how ethical are ambush marketing strategies? Diverting funds from sports official bodies in the hope to sell products is certainly dubious at best. It’s profit over people. But this really only exists in a Pepsi versus Coke scenario, with a Goliath taking on a Goliath in a clash of brand ego’s.
However, the students who produced the watch during Euro 2008 were hardly opportunistic brands seeking to piggyback on UEFA’s event. And surely the small brewing company, Wasutch Beers, taking on Budweiser’s might, had little impact on the Budweiser brand globally in terms of sales or as recognised official sponsor.
Perhaps the most dubious use of ambush marketing is in the Pepsi and Nike examples, where it appears to be more opportunistic and damaging to the long term value of high profile sports events. It has been stated that these companies walk fool hardy into these sponsorship deals and fail to lock down the contracts properly, leaving gaps that can, and have been, exploited by marketers. While many firms will denounce ambush marketing publicly, a 2006 study found that two thirds of brands would willingly adopt such a strategy.
Further examples of Ambush Marketing can be found on the links in this post and on Wikipedia
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