IEG’s Sponsorship Blogs

Is This The Most Brilliant World Cup Ambush Marketing Attempt Yet?

Posted: 6/23/2010 9:18:49 AM by Jim Andrews | with 2 comments

With the eyes of the world focused on the competitive sponsorship activity surrounding the FIFA World Cup, I submit for consideration a press release we received from Berkeley, Calif.-based GU Energy Labs, the maker of GU sports energy gel.

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Filed under: ambush marketing

Friendly Fire: When Properties Are Behind Ambush Marketing Efforts

Posted: 6/4/2010 8:59:14 AM by Jim Andrews | with 0 comments

I know you are probably sick of hearing about ambush marketing, what with the general media back on the topic in advance of the FIFA World Cup tourney starting in South Africa next week, but I have a couple of salient points I’d like to share on the topic.

The first (I’ll save the second for another post) has to do with a longtime pet peeve of ours here at IEG: self-ambush. This is when properties—or related properties such as leagues and their teams—sell rights and benefits that infringe on deals already sold.

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Filed under: pro sports, sports, ambush marketing

Why Aren’t Corporate Sponsors Optimizing Search Terms?

Posted: 5/21/2010 10:14:42 AM by Lesa Ukman | with 0 comments

Official corporate sponsors of the 2008 and 2010 Olympics failed to optimize social media opportunities by ignoring search engine optimization. Now the official corporate sponsors of the 2010 FIFA World Cup—including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates and Hyundai/Kia—are missing the boat.

All are failing to link their activation to online search terms such as “soccer world cup” and “world cup 2010.” There is a huge volume of traffic surrounding these terms and sponsors have the rights to use them. So why aren’t they optimizing? Why isn’t FIFA advising them to do so?

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Filed under: ambush marketing, beverage, cause marketing, digital media, endorsements, international, music, olympics, social media, soft drink, sports, activation

FIFA’s Local Merchant Crackdown Offers Golden Opportunity For Sponsors

Posted: 4/15/2010 12:23:09 PM by Jim Andrews | with 0 comments

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports on FIFA’s efforts to control ambush marketing and the sale of unlicensed merchandise in conjunction with the upcoming World Cup in South Africa.

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Filed under: backlash, international, sports, ambush marketing

The Other Side Of The Current Ambush Marketing Debate

Posted: 2/16/2010 2:59:14 PM by Lesa Ukman | with 0 comments

With the Vancouver Games underway, the IOC and USOC are hoping to create a backlash against ambush marketing.

Hmmm…just because their efforts didn’t work in the ’80s, ’90s or ’00s doesn’t mean our collective sense of social justice won’t kick in on behalf of the mega brands sponsoring in 2010. Don’t you know lots of people whose horror over Haiti, concern for friends and family out of work, etc. pales in comparison to our moral outrage at Verizon Wireless—sponsor of U.S. Speedskating—for stealing thunder from poor little USOC sponsor AT&T?

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Filed under: servicing, ambush marketing

Ambush Marketing Gets Political

Posted: 2/12/2010 2:30:17 PM by Jim Andrews | with 0 comments

The USOC has enlisted U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch in its campaign against ambush marketing. The Utah Republican has issued a statement in support of the organization’s efforts to clamp down on ambushing.

I’m surprised that a conservative politician like Hatch would take such a position. It reeks of big government interfering in private enterprise and sounds an awful lot like the type of anti-business sentiments that Hatch and his GOP colleagues typically rail against.

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Filed under: ambush marketing

The Line Between Ambush and Smart Marketing: Part II, the “Big Game”

Posted: 2/9/2010 9:02:06 AM by Vinu Joseph | with 1 comments

As mentioned in my last post, there are plenty of differing viewpoints on what constitutes an ambush. This time let’s look at the NFL’s marquee attraction, the Big Pro Football Championship Game Recently Played in South Florida.

I find the Super Bowl a more interesting case than the Olympics—at least here in the U.S.—because of its near-holiday status. From a marketing perspective, the game and the NFL take a backseat to the revelry leading up to the game (and the commercial breaks). Can you ambush a holiday?

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Filed under: contracts, endorsements, sports, ambush marketing

The Line Between Ambush and Smart Marketing: Part I, the Winter Olympics

Posted: 1/28/2010 11:32:37 AM by Vinu Joseph | with 0 comments

Among sponsorship pros—particularly properties—the thought of ambush marketing inspires a lot of dirty looks.

So things might get downright ugly over the next few weeks with the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics taking the world stage. Promotions featuring tickets to the “American football championship” and ads with generic winter athletes abound; it must be a veritable IP law Super—actually, let’s just say it’s a big deal.

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Filed under: contracts, endorsements, olympics, sports, ambush marketing

Three Ways to Devalue Your Corporate Sponsorships via Third-Party Fundraising Events

Posted: 1/26/2010 11:48:25 AM by Diane Knoepke | with 0 comments

I read a white paper, written by Blackbaud and Event360, this morning that discusses third-party fundraising events and how to maximize them. While there are good nuggets of information about logistics and tracking, the brief does not touch on how to have third-party events live harmoniously with corporate sponsorship. In fact, the paper asserts that “traditional event organizers need to view independent fundraising as supplementary, not competitive, to their existing development portfolio.”

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Filed under: arts, cause marketing, guidelines, nonprofit, non-traditional categories, ambush marketing

Free Sponsorships! When Companies Use Officially Unofficial Ties to Imaginary Properties

Posted: 12/16/2009 3:54:32 PM by Diane Knoepke | with 0 comments

Without doing so consciously, I have assembled a collection of fake “sponsorships” over the years. While some of these are ambush marketing ploys (see below), what makes them fake is not as simple as pretending to sponsor a property. It’s that they’re sponsoring a pretend property—something no one can possibly own or trademark because it’s too big, too intangible, or too common. After adding to my collection just yesterday, I thought I’d share a few thoughts about how and when companies go there.

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Filed under: ambush marketing, activation