The Olympics and the threat of Ambush Marketing

June 24, 2011 - PRLog -- The commercial and financial benefits of big global events, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, seem increasing in significance to the extent that I sometimes suspect it’s replacing the actual sport, in terms of being the driving force behind why these events even exist.

They become a time of mass public hype, and where there’s public hype there’s advertising. At the 2010 World Cup we witnessed Guerilla Marketing at its sneeky best.

Dutch beer brand Bavaria where booted out and made an example of after their unregistered ‘parasite marketing’ stunt, was brought to justice by FIFA. You’ll probably remember it as, shockingly, the entire block of tickets used by the ladies was allocated by our very own and charming Robbie Earle, who passed on his 50 free tickets to Bavaria be er. Obviously fit dutch girls are enough to get to even the best of us. Sadly, he has now been fired by ITV.

As one of the Holland cheer leaders told The Star newspaper in Johannesburg: “We were sitting near the front, making a lot of noise, and the cameras kept focusing on us.”

Even though the girls were removed and the brand were given bad press, the story was still aired on every news channel (and is still being talked about even today). The stunt was strong enough to overshadowed Budweiser, which was hailed as the new official beer of the World Cup, and jumped from having no measurable online traffic to being the 5th most visited beer website in the UK… job done.

“The beautiful game,” Fifa reiterated, faces a deadly threat: “ambush marketing activities” by firms who wish “to secure themselves a slice of the [World Cup] rewards illicitly without offering any financial support in return”.

This blog was written by Taz Burwaiss marketing manager at Scene2, you can follow him on twitter here @scene2ltd

# # #

Scene2 was created to take the magic of the theater design off the stage and out into the grim reality of the corporate world.

Scene2 are theatrical designers who bring brands to life through experiential events in the same way that a play is brought to life on the stage. Scene2 remains at the cutting edge of experiential design and our aim is to exhaust any creative brief; exploiting all the senses to ensure the brand is experienced and becomes unforgettable.

Our commitment to experiential design is driven by the desire to create moments that have true meaning and value to the consumer.

We also have a boss music system and make excellent cups of tea.