The concept of “ambush marketing” is quite tricky and, in some ways, relatively brilliant. Essentially, it is a marketing campaign developed by a non-sponsor company that interferes with an event sponsored exclusively by a competitor. Major sporting events, such as the Olympics, have fallen prey to these gorilla tactics in the past. The bigger the event, the more money involved, the bigger the deal.
“Events like the Olympics and the World Cup are hugely expensive to put on, so they need big-money sponsors and this in turn means that the organizers must protect aggressively against ambush marketing,” — Phillip Johnson, a visiting senior fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. “But this means there is potentially huge exposure for anyone who manages to outwit them.” Continue Reading »
