The Hindu Business Line : Ambushes a war tactic

R. Zutshi, Vice-President, Sales and M. B. Lee, Vice-President, Marketing, Samsung India, announcing Team Samsung, a line-up of seven cricketers endorsing the company's products.

In the recent controversy between the cricketers and the ICC, a term called `ambush marketing' has been used a lot. Apparently, the sponsors of the ICC tournament have used a clause to prevent the host of brands that currently use players as endorsers from `ambushing' the main sponsors of the tournament. The ICC clause said that players cannot endorse any other brands a month before the ICC Champions Trophy and for a month after as well.

In a larger context, what are the objectives of ambush marketing? Is it a clever marketing tactic? Or is it an unethical method of hitting your rival below the belt? What are the instances of ambush marketing that you have experienced or used yourself, and can you describe some famous instances where these tactics were used to effect?

— Ravi Kumar, on e.mail

IN THE recent past, the term `ambush marketing' has been excessively used and abused with few understanding the true meaning of the term. I would like to begin by defining, in my understanding, the term `ambush marketing'. Ambush marketing is an effort by an unauthorised party to appropriate the goodwill of an event at the expense of another company's (usually a rival's) association with the event. It occurs at two levels — onsite and on media. Onsite ambush marketing occurs at the event itself and the area surrounding it, including the approach roads and so on, and covers everything from refreshments, clothing, billboards, posters, stalls and so on.

Samsung, during the 1996 Olympic Games, launched a very successful onsite ambush effort in Atlanta City. Samsung, an unofficial Olympic sponsor, launched an aggressive ambush marketing scheme directed at Panasonic by taking squatters rights to a parking lot on the outer limits of the Centennial Olympic Park. Panasonic, the official Olympic sponsor, displayed its logo on the CNN tower looming over the Olympic Park. The result, Panasonic captured only three per cent awareness compared to the nine per cent stolen by Samsung.

Media ambush marketing would occur through sponsorships of spots, scrolls, logo positions and so on, on the media used to cover the event (generally TV, radio or press). For example, L'Oreal hair colour ads appearing during the Lakme India Fashion Week broadcasts.

The objectives of ambush marketing are two. First, to get maximum returns on the marketing buck. Official sponsorship costs are forbiddingly high, even for deep-pocketed marketers, and simply unaffordable for others. Pepsi paid $22 million to become a global sponsor of the two World Cups and the ICC tournaments.

The second and more common reason: to undermine the branding efforts of rivals by stealing the attention, increasing the clutter and confusing the viewers. The Pepsi hot air balloon flying above Sharjah, on the day of the Coca-Cola Cup final, is one such example. More recently, there is, for instance, the straight fight between Hero Honda, a global sponsor of the Champions Trophy taking place in Sri Lanka, and its rival TVS. TVS has, according to industry experts, paid Rs 12 crore to rope in cricketer Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador for three years.

Ambush marketing is clearly another tool in a brand's arsenal and is a part of competitive marketing aimed at building awareness and creating a differentiation in a competitive market place.

The current ICC controversy is precipitated by the desire to protect official sponsors of the Champions Trophy. The ICC does not want to allow any company to cash in on its events secured by other sponsors paying huge sums of money. The objective is to protect the exclusive rights granted to the sponsors at a whopping cost of $550 million (until 2007). The International Olympic Committee is facing a similar problem. Sports brands such as Nike, which sponsored the entire uniforms of all the hockey teams from head to toe have achieved high salience and association without paying the $5 million to $50 million official sponsorships amounts.

Should the ICC protect the sponsors' exclusive rights that they have demanded and paid for? Yes, they should. Should the sponsors be protected from ambush by rivals? Yes, they should. However, I would like to add here, that in spite of the protection provided, there will still be loopholes and opportunities for rivals to undermine the mileage gained from such events. One such example is the Pepsi World Cup baseline — `Nothing official about it'.

The success of any sponsorship finally rests on the sponsor's ability to sign a watertight contract, fully leverage the opportunity and always stay a step ahead of competition.

LG, for instance, has played smart in its recent global sponsorship contract with ICC. For the price it has paid to ICC, it has also seized the global sponsorship right to computer and computer peripherals apart from the durables. Consequently, Samsung cannot burst onto the TV screen even with its computer peripheral's commercials that feature the cricket stars. However, the fact remains that LG did not block the cell phone category, thus leaving it open for Samsung to advertise. But despite these measures, there is little that be can be done to control creative advertising. Samsung in an all out effort to undermine LG's sponsorship is launching a campaign saying `Official sponsor of the digital passion'. It is important to remember, there is a war out there and one brand's ambush is another's victory!

(The author is CEO, Quadra Advisory, a strategic marketing consultancy. Readers can send in their questions on marketing issues to The Editor, The Hindu Business Line, 859 Anna Salai, Chennai-600002, or e-mail them to bleditor@thehindu.co.in)

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