Ambush marketing is strategic way advertisers associate
their brand with a certain event without paying a sponsorship fee. The Olympics
provide a perfect platform for ambush marketing. I think ambush marketing
should be monitored, but not completely eliminated. Each sponsor is approved
for the Olympics, and made sure that the brand image correlates with the
Olympics. When it comes to ambush marketing, if a brand that associates itself
with the Olympics receives negative publicity, it can reflect badly on the
Olympics. This is a reason for an event to spend time monitoring ambush
marketing campaigns for infringement violations.
Despite these aspects, I think ambush
marketing can provide an opportunity for companies to be creative. As long as
no infringement laws have been violated, I think its ok for a company to
participate in ambush marketing if the campaign is clever enough and done well.
Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” campaign that aired during 2012 London Summer
Olympics is a perfect example of great execution of ambush marketing. The ad
showed other towns around the world also named London and portrayed the message
that any athlete could be great. Nike wasn’t an official sponsor of the
Olympics, but their ads were effectively associated with the event and what the
event stands for. Nike has been effectively using ambush marketing for its
advantage. Its been so successful that in the 1984 summer Olympics the amount
of Nike ads shown made consumers think Nike was an official sponsor rather than
the real sponsor Converse. If done well and clever enough, ambush marketing can
be successful and could potentially work better than an actual sponsorship. Despite
some negative connotations, I think there should be exceptions for ambush
marketing as long as the company is cleaver and creative enough to achieve it.
No comments:
Post a Comment