Role of Ambush Marketing in Redefining Brand Sponsorship Strategies

Ambush marketing has emerged over the past twenty years as a key concern of sponsors and rights holders. As sponsorship investment has grown, so too have the efforts of non-sponsors and competitors to associate with major sporting properties. The evolution of ambushing – adapting to counter-ambush strategies and identifying greater opportunities to ambush – has signaled a need for researchers and practitioners alike to better understand the nature of ambush marketing, and perhaps most importantly, the strategies available to rights holders and sponsors to counter these efforts. The aim of this paper will be to identify what ambush marketing is, what form it takes, and what is the impact of ambush marketing on Commercial sponsorship. Specifically, the paper will examine ambush marketing from a historical perspective, identifying the common strategies and efforts employed over the past two decades, and to explore the impact of of ambush marketing on events, customers and sponsorship.