On Tuesday, a group of 36 attractive Dutch women wearing skimpy orange dresses were ejected from a World Cup match in South Africa in an apparent case of "ambush marketing." The women had allegedly gathered in a show of support for Dutch brewer Bavaria, representing a violation of FIFA's agreement with Budweiser, the event's official beer sponsor.
Ambush marketing is when a company not sponsoring an event like the World Cup or the Olympics runs a campaign that links the advertiser to that event in the consumer's mind.
But Bavaria is not ambushing alone. Nielsen studied English-language World Cup related messages on blogs, message boards, groups, videos and image sites, including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Nike was mentioned in 30.2 percent of the messages from May 7 to June 6, making it the most talked about company tracked. Adidas AG, the official sporting goods sponsor, was a far second at 14.4 percent. Much of Nike's buzz activity was said to be driven by its global "Write the Future" campaign, which featured soccer stars Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo as well as other famous athletes such as Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer. The ad has gotten almost 16 million views on YouTube since the middle of May. Adidas' own Star Wars-themed World Cup video featuring soccer legend David Beckham, released at the start of the World Cup, has drawn just over three million viewers.
"Social media has made ambush marketing easier, simply because of the virality of it," Alex Burmaster, vice president of communications for Nielsen, told Reuters. "Some people call it an echo chamber."
"If you're a company with a large global footprint, it's natural to want to associate yourself with a major worldwide event like the World Cup," said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of digital strategy at The Nielsen Company, in a statement. "This study shows that compelling, savvy marketing can establish this sort of connection in the eyes of consumers without having to write that expensive sponsorship check."
Nonetheless, Nielsen noted
that the sponsors generally have so far benefited from their association with
the games:
- Coca-Cola had five times the level of association with the World Cup than Pepsi.
- Triggered by Twitter retweets in early June to its FIFA YouTube page and its campaign to create the longest "goal" shout, Visa had 15 times the World Cup association than MasterCard.
- Sony, tying its launch of 3D TV sets to the World Cup, had association
levels seven times higher than Panasonic and ten times higher than Philips.
Discussion Questions: What do you think of the opportunities as well as the ethics around ambush marketing campaigns for events such as the World Cup and the Olympics? When does ambush marketing violate the official sponsor's rights? Has social media made ambush marketing more effective?