How official sponsors have been affected by the activities of ambush Essay

How official sponsors have been affected by the activities of ambush - Essay Example This research will begin with the definition of ambush marketing. Crimmins and Horn define ambush marketing as the act in which a corporation takes advantage of a well known event like FIVA tournaments in football to popularize itself without an official permit from the concerned party. It is considered to be a form of marketing strategy in which one of the many competing companies associates itself with a particular sporting event, without paying the required fee. The company associates itself directly with the event and it’s participants without an official permit, creating an unfair competition with the official sponsors. The aim of the ambush marketing is to popularize their company by influencing fans to buy their products. They only associate themselves to the event but do not use trademarks of the third party while only suggesting a close connection to the event by creatively alluding themselves to that event. Generally, ambush marketing can be demonstrated in one of th e following ways such as through sponsorship of the event’s broadcasting. Lyberger and McCarthy concurs that this will work to their advantage since it will popularize itself among the fans through the televisions covering the event. Secondly, the ambush marketer might also sponsor the event’s subcategories and hence boosting their association through a cost-effective method. Another strategy ambush marketers employ is to buy time to advertise themselves during their competitors’ event. Furthermore they can as well organize for similar but non-sponsored events to run co-currently with the event. Finally, the ambush marketers can opt to buy licenses allowing them to sell their products during the event or offer unsanctioned tickets and hospitality packages to fans of the event. This paper discusses a case study of ambush marketing in India. Case Study Vikrant (2003, p.34) examines India as one of the many countries which have been affected by the activities of th e ambush marketers during the 2003 Cricket World cup. One of the cases was triggered by a promotion dubbed Phillips, which was offering Cricket World Cup tickets as prizes. The slogans that were used during the promotion indicated the name â€Å"Philips† and they urged interested candidates to buy an audio system from Philips and get one cricket world cup ticket (O’Sullivan and Murphy, 2000, p.366). In addition, the tickets indicated a seating place for someone and the entry number at the gate. This incidence caused a lot of suspicion since the Philips Sponsor had no official recognition among the sponsors of the event. Lyberger and McCarthy (2001, p. 134) explains that during that year the International Cricket Council (ICC) had signed official agreements with nine sponsors who were officially recognized. It came to the attention of the council that the sponsor calling itself Philips was not among the nine sponsors. Consequently, the council presented claims that the Philips Sponsor was trespassing and offering unfair competition to the recognized official sponsors. The sponsors of Phillips were an ambushing marketer and the council filed a suit restraining the sponsor from associating its advertisements to the world tournament (Vikrant, 2003, p. 38). However, this was a belated afterthought as the ambush had already caused a lot of damage to the official sponsors and stopping the adverts could not reverse its gains to Phillips. Matters were further complicated by the fact that a case presented to an Indian court by the council was dismissed on grounds that the information contained in the Philips Slogan was just a form of advertisement (Natal, p. 2003). According to the court, Philips was just looking for a way to attract many people to buy their products, which doesn’t amount to an infringement. It interpreted the information in the slogan as any person purchasing goods form Philips would be awarded a prize, only that the prize was the