With less than a week left for the T20 world cup cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has said it will take stringent legal action against radio stations involved in ambush marketing during the tournament. This is the first time the council has decided to come down heavily on an offender.

ICC relayed the information in a recent communication to the Association of Radio Operators of India, which has further alerted all the radio broadcasters in the country to adhere to rules.

Ambush marketing is a strategy wherein advertisers and other firms, not associated with the tournament officially, try to gain mileage out of an event without paying any sponsorship fee.

The ICC T20 this year will be played in Sri Lanka from September 18 to October 7. All India Radio and 92.7Big FM, part of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd (RBNL), are the official radio partners for T20 this year.

RBNL’s chief executive officer Tarun Katial said, “It will help curb misuse of content by other stations. We look forward to offering consumers the best possible entertainment package with exclusive and highly engaging content, while offering marketers an approved and ethical platform by which they can reach out to their audiences.”

Festivals and sporting events are huge opportunities for radio stations to create special properties, contents and packages on which they can cash in. This, in turn, results in ambush marketing, illegal broadcast of an event and misuse of content, thus resulting in revenue loss of about 30-40 per cent, according to analysts tracking the sector.

“Ambush marketing is rampant in television and internet and can be checked. However, it is very difficult to keep a tab on radio stations,” said Sunil Kumar, Managing Director of consulting firm Big River Radio. He further said that the stations might come up with more creative content and can earn even more than the official partners.

> Priyanka.pani@thehindu.co.in

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