Ambush Marketing at the World Cup

2 July 2010

By Ben Evans

Football fans cannot have failed to have noticed the women ejected from the Holland v Denmark World Cup match last month.

Ambush marketing is a major consideration for organisers of sporting events, we have written about the basics of ambush marketing before and so wont go into the subject in too much detail. Basically however it is marketing that takes place at or around an event where the marketer does not pay a fee to the organisers of the event.

In this circumstance a group of women dressed in orange dresses, this was a marketing ploy for the brewer 'Bavaria'. Bavaria have become well known in the sphere of ambush marketing having pulled similar stunts at previous events. The interesting point here is FIFA's reaction, by ejecting the fans and the South African authorities taking criminal actions against some of the women they are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot. Simply Bavaria have received much more publicity than if the attempt had gone off successfully.

What this does raise is something that will become more relevant the closer we get to the 2012 Olympics. The relevant legislation has been put into place and it is almost certain that we will see a good deal of ambush marketing issues as the competition gets closer.

Ben Evans is a trainee solicitor at Lawdit.