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Looking at the big picture around ambush marketing

Business | Sponsorship | Sport

With several reports of ambush marketing tactics, primarily in the US, before the recent Winter Games in Vancouver and London 2012 only two and a half years away, discussion within the industry has even caused the BBC to ask how the world should combat ambush marketing. Well how about this for an idea? Rather than quickly getting evangelical and preaching to or berating the perpetrators of these “offences”, why not take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

In moves akin to the worst of political correctness or health and safety, there are calls by some to legislate to remove the threat and protect the rights holders and sponsors. But we have a couple of issues with that. First, is there not an onus on the rights holder to deliver a package that is not only valuable but unique, defensible and easily communicated? It certainly is complex to police the usage of rights but if these elements are thought through then surely the rights of the sponsors should be protected. If Coca-Cola is an official sponsor of an event where is the exclusion line for Pepsi or Virgin or Red Bull drawn? If the eco-system around broadcast rights allows either of these to sponsor or advertise during the TV coverage of that event then why shouldn’t they? Perhaps the IOC or FIFA should come up with advertising restrictions as part of their broadcast packages, but how then do the TV companies pay the significant TV rights, which after all are the main source of revenue for the events?

Secondly, the more the population is protected by rules dreamt up by the nanny state or any other interested bodies, the less able people are to think for themselves, make judgements and draw their own conclusions. Is the public fooled by the ambush? Perhaps, but going back to the start, is that not partly the fault of the original deal that was either too tenuous or not clear enough or just not defensible?

Just to conclude, let’s make it clear that we are not condoning ambush marketing but simply trying to keep things in perspective. Like many things in life the answer is not simply a case on putting some news rules in place. At the end of the day if businesses want to advertise on the next billboard then it is really the sellers’ problem to sort out in a long term market economy.

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