Marketers are bringing their A-game to this summer’s mega sporting events. But when that ‘A’ stands for ‘ambush,’ event officials are swooping in to protect their brands—and sponsor investment
It’s a big summer for sports, with both the UEFA Euro 2012 and the London 2012 Summer Olympics capturing the attention of billions around the world. It’s fun and games for the fans—and very big business for marketers who pay huge dollars to become official sponsors. But with such massive audiences, plenty of marketers are rolling out ambush campaigns hoping to ride the buzz bandwagon without anteing up for official sponsorships. And just as agressively they’re being searched out by event officials and sponsors that demand brands—mind the pun—pay to play.
Even small businesses are taking measures to avoid catching heat from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). Take the wee coffee house in east London that abruptly dropped the ‘O’ from its front sign recently. It now, rather bizarrely, reads ‘Café lympic.’
Is this what abiding by the regulations of major sporting events has come to? Yes and no, say insiders.
While major sporting events are tightly mandated, that’s not to say non-sponsor marketers have to completely stifle their enthusiasm around them.
Looking back to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Bill Cooper, then the chief protector of sponsorship deals and now chief operating partner of Twentyten Group, a firm staffed by many members from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), says VANOC’s objectives were built on protecting the stories and exclusivity it promised official sponsors.
When situations popped up that were “obviously designed to erode that,” Cooper says VANOC acted quickly to make sure brands would want to invest in amateur sport in the future. “Sponsorship is one of the critical revenue streams to make events of this scale and amateur sport more broadly sustainable.”
VANOC has transferred knowledge about hosting the Vancouver Games to LOGOC, he says. This includes tactics around brand use guidelines, which VANOC and subsequently the Canadian Olympic Committee keep transparent so that everyone understands the thresholds around brand use.
Some cases are more grey than others. You may remember that VANOC called out Lululemon in a “name and shame” campaign around the time of the Vancouver Games after the apparel company put out a line of clothing that didn’t technically violate the legal boundaries, but certainly seemed Olympics-inspired.
But being reprimanded for an ambush campaign isn’t always an entirely bad thing. In some cases, the stunt could go viral and get a lot of unplanned press. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Dutch brand Bavaria Beer—not an official sponsor of the soccer championship—had women in orange dresses promote its brew at a Holland-Denmark game (the Dutch team wears orange and so do most of its fans). There were serious repercussions—FIFA filed a civil case against the beer company—but the stunt certainly added a bit of edge to the brand’s image. The subsequent spike in sales and website traffic didn’t hurt, either.
Over the past few years, countries applying to host the Olympics or World Cup had to pass special legislation that protects their brands as part of the bid process. Norm O’Reilly, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa that specializes in sports business, says this measure “really protects the top sponsors.”
That’s vital, especially since O’Reilly says research shows about 40% of people within eight developed countries, whether they realize it or not, will alter their purchase decisions or purchase considerations based on an official sponsor of their Olympic team or someone they perceive to be supporting their athletes.
So how can brands capitalize on that consumer enthusiasm without being an official sponsor? O’Reilly says marketers can look to alternative properties that “have some kind of inventory related to the Olympics,” whether it’s an athlete or a national sport organization that has, say, Olympic trials or lead-up to the Games.
“You’ve just got to be careful that you’re not implying that you have the rights to the Games,” says Tony Chapman, founder of Toronto agency Capital C. He adds to the list of ideas for brands to become part of the experience: help fund a public group viewing of the Olympic Broadcast to get Canadians cheering together (it also acts as an opportunity for product sampling); leverage the web and a partnership with a broadcaster to help create a national cheer; sponsor a small selection of Canadian athletes “who, if they aren’t swimmers or sprinters, primarily go unnoticed.”
Chapman says he’s a huge fan of finding ways to tap into the audience and passion that big sporting events bring. One of Capital C’s campaigns, though, ran afould of VANOC. The 2010 Scotiabank “Show your Colours” campaign prompted Canadians to share photos and stories demonstrating their national pride. Scotiabank didn’t claim to be an official Olympics sponsor (RBC was), but VANOC said the campaign misled consumers.
Jon Heshka, an associate professor that specializes in sports law at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C., thinks the Scotiabank campaign—as well as the Lululemon clothing line—were smart marketing. In fact, he’s not convinced that ambush marketing per se is bad. In his view, big events like the Olympics and the World Cup have “created an environment of corporate monopolies for those who support them” and that doesn’t jibe with a free market economy grounded on competition. “I don’t think we should be critical of those who choose to compete with official sponsors in a way that doesn’t violate the law,” says Heshka.
He points to Labatt’s recent “NHL Playoff Payoff” campaign, in which the beer company associated itself with hockey in a campaign that’s unrelated to patriotism, yet managed to link the brand indirectly with the event. Heshka calls it “good business.”
He predicts the London Games will see marketers deploy ambush campaigns grounded in social media that are meant to go viral. “It’ll almost be like a blitzkrieg campaign, so if they can get two or five days out of it before it fizzles out, that would be considered a massive success.”
Check out the July 9 issue of Marketing for more.
