Over the years marketers have found several innovative ways to advertize their brands. Ambush Marketing is one of such unique and creative ways of marketing. In general Ambush means “An attack from Hidden Position”. In Ambush Marketing, Company capitalize to advertize themselves on the events, in which it’s not an official sponsor. There have been numerous examples in which other companies dragged the limelight, without being an official sponsor. Some of the examples are:
FIFA World Cup 2010: Adidas was one of the official sponsors of 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa. Adidas bagged the sponsorship by beating their closest rival NIKE.
NIKE went for Ambush Marketing and launched “Write the Future Campaign”. The campaign featured TV commercials consisting of football stars like Rooney, Ronaldo were launched three weeks before the starting of FIFA World Cup. As a result, NIKE was successful in creating a lot of buzz, even before start of World Cup. In a survey published by The Nielsen Company, it was claimed that NIKE was more benefitted from the event, in comparison to official sponsor Adidas. The campaign was so successful that some people misunderstood NIKE as the official sponsors of the World Cup.
Video Commercial “Write The Future Campaign”
Wills Cup 1996: Pepsi was unsuccessful to get sponsorship of 1996 World Cup. But Pepsi used Ambush Marketing to capitalize such event by launching a campaign called “There is nothing official about it”. This campaign was targeted to steal the show from Coca-Cola who was official sponsor of the World Cup.
Ambush Marketing still being one of the most cost effective and creative ways of marketing, has still faced a lot of criticism. This criticism mainly comes from the official sponsors, who have spent millions of dollar to get sponsorship. It has been thought increasing use of Ambush Marketing during big events could reduce the value of official sponsorship, which in turn may hinder sponsorship funding.
Upcoming Events: Rugby World Cup 2011
The Rugby World Cup 2011 is one of the most awaited events starting from 9th September in New Zealand. Even before starting of World Cup, Sponsors are worried that some companies may use Ambush Marketing and try to gain popularity through the event at the expense of sponsors. As a result of increasing pressure from sponsors to safeguard their sponsorship rights has forced Government of New Zealand to introduce Anti-Ambush Marketing Legislation as a part of a major Events Management Bill.
This article has been contributed by Manish Badlani who is a management student from IBS (ICFAIBusinessSchool) Mumbai. He is passionate about marketing and likes to analyze the marketing strategies of leading companies as well as the changing trends of the industry.
Very Good Article & Very Valuable one for MBA Marketing Students.I strongly recommend to read this article.
Very Informative article, explained with Excellent examples. Keep up the good work Manish.
Very Nice and Informative article…..
excellent article….!!
awesome manish…..!!!
Great Article…it would be really great, if we can get more of such articles….
Very Nice article, the article tries to clear the concept of Ambush Marketing by the help of relevant examples, which is really great.
Nicely written article, I never came to know such kind of terms in marketing, it was really something new and informative. Good Work, we hope to read more articles like this.
Very Informative Article, making the Concept of Ambush Marketing very much Clear to the People who are not known to such sort of Marketing Practice.
Very Well Done..Keep it Up.
very nice articale now people actully aware with this AMBUS MARKETING ,keep it up all the best waiting for next articae
Well explanatory article with really good examples. Made the concept of Ambush Marketing very clear in few sentences. The article may be helpful for Marketing as well as Advertising students.
Nice one. I think this article should be read by each & every MBA ( especially marketing) student.
very nicely done … Good one !!!
innovative ….keen observation at d major events but its agud aatempt one shud use in order to capture market sahre…a nice hidden strategy….profit in disguise::)))
Very good and informative article with excellent example…………
hi.. thanks for such an informative and full of examples article. like to hear more from you on the topic social marketing. thanks a lot.
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Good article, I liked your example regarding the Adidas sponsorship of the 2010 Fifa; thinking back I personally thought that Nike was the sponsor. The outlay for Nike to do such a stunt would have cost them millions of dollars though, the fact that they booked out 3 munute TVCS on a global scale. It would be interesting to see if they actually had spent more in the process than Adidas did for the sponsorship rights