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Ambush marketing – creative, or indecent marketing tactic?
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Following on from the arrest of two Dutch women at the FIFA World Cup for illegally promoting Bavaria beer and the subsequent dismissal of football pundit Robbie Earle from ITV for supplying them with the tickets, many businesses and marketing specialists are questioning ‘ambush’ marketing and its relevance. Carl Weston, head of marketing at leading Midlands law firm Flint Bishop, discusses the impact of so called ‘ambush marketing’ and whether it really has a place in the marketing mix.
It is a problem that thousands of businesses up and down the land face on a daily basis: just how can businesses with relatively small marketing funds compete with competitors armed with six-figure budgets and, very often, slick advertising agency created campaigns?
This is where ‘ambush marketing’ comes in. This type of marketing, which appears to be growing in popularity, is when one brand pays to become an official sponsor of a major event, typically sports or music related, and another competing brand attempts to ‘ambush’ this relationship by engaging with the audience in an innovative and unconventional manner – usually including free product giveaways.
Last week’s incident at the Netherlands-Denmark match is a prime example. Budweiser serves as the official beer sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. 36 female supporters attended the Netherlands game sporting orange mini-dresses, were part of a Bavaria beer promotional campaign. Even though the dresses did not have the Bavaria logo emblazoned on them, it was common knowledge that the outfits were sold with Bavaria beer packs in the Netherlands in the run-up to the World Cup. FIFA says the group wore them to the match as a marketing stunt in defiance of its strict commercial regulations at matches.
Very few people will argue that this type of marketing is not creative. I personally witnessed a form of ambush marketing whilst on holiday in Madrid. I was in the middle of a street carnival, whose paid-for sponsor was a large mobile phone provider. Suddenly, eight very attractive young people – four males and four females dressed in corporate colours – simultaneously turned on their own mobile phones and proceeded to perform a highly choreographed dance routine. This was incredibly entertaining and of course got everyone’s attention, but no doubt infuriated the company that paid to sponsor the event.
And therein lies the issue. It’s truly a David and Goliath situation. The large brand, Goliath, has spent millions of pounds to secure its presence at these large arenas only to find the attention taken away from them by David, the smaller brand, who cannot afford to promote themselves in that manner. They therefore, resort to creative tactics. And the more noise and complaints that the larger brand makes, the less sympathy they seem to get from the public as they will usually side with the “little man”. The kudos will more often than not go to the small brand.
The other issue, however, is for the event that is being sponsored. Take FIFA for example; if Budweiser becomes so frustrated with the situation, it could have good reason for pulling out of sponsoring future World Cups - after all they are spending massive sums of money, but what is perceived to be a smaller beer company is getting publicity for free. And without these large sponsorship deals, the event may not have the same impact due to finances.
There may also be legal issues involved, since Budweiser may feel that FIFA has broken its contract by allowing other companies’ to carry out what is tantamount to advertising.
Regardless of whether it is illegal in certain countries and ultimately wrong, ambush marketing will continue to exist in spite of the negative publicity, since the eventual gain is that people like me are talking about your brand.
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