Ambush marketing is basically a practice in which a rival
company or brand attempts to promote its products with another
event that already has sponsors. It is simply a situation in which
a rival associates itself with an event unofficially to breach the
full exposure of the sponsors. It’s a form of marketing
strategy done by many brands, companies, organizations, etc. Ambush
marketing is widely present in every single industry, with the
purpose being to raise awareness of a brand in covert ways. It is
now pretty much considered as a market method itself. One prominent
feature of ambush marketing is that it is really unexpected. A
company endorsing and sponsoring something would be more focused on
their primary duty, whereas on the other end other companies come
out with the most surprising tactic to ambush the event.

Sports is probably the biggest platform in which ambush
marketing prevails. If you consider the amount of sponsorship,
endorsements and so on associated with just one league, or just one
team or even just one player, that’s a lot! Think, Indian
Premier League itself for an example, you have the league sponsors,
then each of the franchisees have their own sponsors and even the
players have their own apparel and bat sponsors. The amount of
total sponsors would be loads. Therefore sports seems like a very
easy platform via which a rival can use the method of ambush
marketing.

The first type of ambush marketing that happens in sports is
Direct Ambushing. It is simply the unauthorized usage of symbols,
words, logos, designs and so on. These brands simply go all out on
and attack a competitor or just steal their exposure without hiding
their intentions. Further, there are four types of Direct
Ambushing: Predatory Ambushing, Coattail Ambushing, Trademark
Infringement and Self-ambushing. Predatory Ambushing is a marketing
tactic in which a brand attacks the sponsorship of a rival band and
eventually confuses the consumers as to who the official sponsor
actually is. Coattail Ambushing refers to an activity where a brand
takes advantage of a platform set up by another brand in order to
gain some visibility for themselves. Trademark Infringement is a
situation where a brand intentionally uses trademarks, taglines and
so on from another brand to advertise itself with the intention
being to confuse the customers and spoil the marketing efforts of
the other brand. Lastly, self ambushing is a marketing stunt by
brands in which, brands which are already a sponsor of an event,
surpass the parameters of their contract by performing various
event activities.

Few instances in which Direct ambushing has openly happened in
the past are, During the 2012 London Olympics, Beats Electronics
were not a sponsor of the Olympics. Taking advantage of the
audience of Olympic games without paying anything, the CEO of Beats
gifted athletes customized headphones with the colors of their
irrespective home flag. This was observed by many people and even
lots of athletes tweeted about this and Beats got millions to see
their product without even paying a dime. Another instance is
during the 2008 UEFA European Championship. Carlsberg, a beer brand
was an official sponsor of the tournament. They gave out free
branded t-shirts and headbands of Carlsberg in spite of such a
thing not being a part of their contract agreement, by doing this
they infringed the rights of other sponsors who agreed on giving
out free products. Looking at how direct Ambushing itself works, I
can figure out how sports is the biggest and even the best platform
for any brand to ambush. The fact that sports relies on sponsors
and spectators, is the very reason as to why it can be used as the
best platform for brands to Sponsor and even not sponsor and still
gain exposure and popularity.

The next type of Ambush marketing in sports is Indirect Ambush
Marketing. Indirect Ambush Marketing refers to those situations in
which a brand attempts to indirectly take advantage of the
marketing efforts of another brand. This form of Ambush marketing
is further split into two types namely, Indirect ambush marketing
by association and indirect ambush marketing by distraction.

Indirect ambush marketing by association is a strategy used by
brands to create an illusion that the brand is associated with the
event by using terms , pictures and so on that are not protected by
intellectual property laws. So in this form, a brand will use
indirect statements as promotion with reference to the event and
gain popularity. On the other hand, indirect ambush marketing by
distraction is simply a situation in which a brand sets up a
promotional presence in and around or even in the area of an event
without any attempt to have an association with the other brand and
the event. This happens when brands basically distract people by
some activity of theirs which is not even related to the event, but
their motive is to attract the attention of those involved with the
ongoing event.

Examples of indirect Ambush Marketing in sports are: During the
2012 London Olympic games, an Irish Gambling chain named Paddy
Power put up billboards across London claiming themselves to be the
” official sponsor of the largest athletics event in London
” for that year. In a smaller print, they put a disclaimer as
well which makes it clear that they were referring to the French
Town of London and not referring to the Olympics. They were
referring to a traditional egg and spoon race in London, which they
were actually sponsoring. The International Olympic Committee (IOC)
even tried to sue Paddy Power for their cheeky ambush, but they
failed . Another example of Indirect Ambushing is a marketing
distraction set up by Nike during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Reebok was the official sponsor of that year’s Olympic games.
What Nike did is that they set up an alternative athletes village
which overlooked the Olympic park a distance of about One mile away
from the Official Olympic athletes village. They gained so much
attraction not only from the random people, but from the athletes
as well.

Indirect Ambush marketing is easily one of the most commonly
used methods of ambush marketing. It happens in so many ways in all
the possible sports tournaments. This form of ambush marketing does
not intend to associate with the event or the sponsor of the event.
Its motive is just to drive away the attention of the spectators
away from that event by some action.

Next type of ambush marketing in sports is Ambush marketing
through the athletes. What brands attempt to do here is to get an
individual athlete ambush an event like the Olympics or get an
individual player of a team to ambush the team’s official
sponsor. This could be related to the previous example of how Beats
used the athletes of Olympics to ambush the event. During the 1992
Barcelona Olympic games, Nike used their face, and one of the most
popular persons on the planet during that time, Michael Jordan by
having him cover a rival company and official sponsor Reebok’s
logo with the American flag. So Jordan not only took the stage to
get an Olympic Gold for him, but for Nike as well. The bold move by
Jordan to involve himself with marketing in such a way would have
definitely gotten him a huge pay off. So basically, brands like
Nike, Reebok, Adidas and so on, have collaborated with
sportspersons and have created signature shoes for the sports
persons. With this collaboration, the brands make those signature
shoes into a signature brand itself which starts to sell all types
of merchandise made by that brand itself. So basically if an
athlete has collaborated with say for example with Nike, he is now
a part of Nike! And when he’s attending an event sponsored by a
rival like Adidas, he is ambushing the event by wearing his
signature Nike products. Or he could also be a player with a club
which is sponsored by Puma. His jersey will be puma, but his shoes
are his signature Nike shoes, therefore he is promoting Nike in
front of a platform in which Puma has spent money to promote
themselves.

While ambush marketing is a questionable practice, most nations
don’t have any legitimate arrangements around this area.
However, the lawfulness of an ambush marketing effort relies upon
the methodology utilized by the ambush advertiser in that specific
campaign. If the ambush marketing effort encroaches on the
trademarks and other protected innovation of another brand, the
ambusher can be sued under trademark encroachment laws. However,
many ambush advertisers are normally mindful so as not to encroach
on the trademarks of another brand or event. In a few cases, the
ambush advertiser can at present be charged regardless of not
encroaching on the trademarks of another brand.

For instance, in the Bavaria incident, Bavaria was charged in
court and fined for the brew angels stunt since it conflicted with
FIFA limitations which clarified that marks that had not purchased
sponsorship rights to the World Cup were denied from doing
marketing exercises at the event. Still, even with such
limitations, ambush advertisers can at present discover approaches
to skirt around the restrictions. For model, notwithstanding severe
limitations being set up and even brand police being sent at the
London Summer Olympic Games in 2012, Beats by Dre was as yet ready
to effectively execute an ambush marketing effort at the games
without making itself at risk to a lawsuit.

All taking all things together, It can be derived that ambush
marketing will stay a lawful hazy area since it is difficult to
cover all possible ambush marketing situations, and ambush
advertisers will keep abusing these lawful holes to dispatch ambush
marketing efforts. While it is a disputable practice, ambush
marketing will keep being an extraordinary path for brands to raise
their image value, upgrade purchaser observations and maybe
increase a portion of the market. Brands that choose to go this
course should be speedy and profoundly innovative in the event that
they need their trap promoting efforts to be compelling and
memorable. If you choose to go down this course, it is likewise
acceptable to initially make yourself mindful of the limitations
encompassing an occasion or another brand’s showcasing effort
before propelling your ambush promoting effort, at any rate on the
off chance that you would prefer not to discover your image on edge
end of a legitimate suit.

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