Point of View: Ambush Marketing: Immoral or Imaginative Practice?

Commercial sponsorship involves the sponsor in funding activities such as sports, the Arts, and community projects as a method of marketing communications. The practice whereby another company, often a competitor, seeks association with the sponsored activity without payment to the activity owner is known as ambush marketing. This behavior reduces the effectiveness of the official sponsors’ promotional efforts while simultaneously denying the activity owner potential revenue. This paper examines the main strategies employed by ambush marketers as well as the counter strategies which corporate sponsors can use to protect their investments. The effectiveness of ambush marketing is analyzed as is the morality of this increasingly prevalent competitive behavior. A research agenda for this underresearched aspect of marketing communications is also proposed.