Ambush Marketing

A promotion tactic designed to associate a company, product, or service with a particular event, or to attract the attention of people attending the event, without payment being made for an official sponsorship. For example, a business affiliates itself with a particular athlete or sports team rather than paying to become an official Olympics sponsor. Successful ambush marketing diminishes the value of an official sponsorship. Also called parasitic marketing.



EXAMPLES OF AMBUSH MARKETING
It was quick and it was smart. It was an ambush in the skies that Hindustan Unilever launched against archrival Procter & Gamble, spoiling the latter’s elaborately laid-out plans for its shampoo brand Pantene.

The story starts on July 23, when Mumbai woke up to hoardings that screamed: ‘A Mystery Shampoo!! 80% women say is better than anything else’. P&G, it was later found, was planning to unveil the new Pantene on August 1.

When the suits at HUL found out, they saw an opportunity to score a point. They ambushed P&G. On July 28, even as the P&G hoardings stood tall on its skyline, Mumbai woke up to another hoarding that was upfront, and suggestive of its source of inspiration. It said: ‘There is no mystery. Dove is the No.1 shampoo’. Dove is one of the four brands in HUL’s shampoo portfolio.

The HUL national campaign took just one day to go from brief to execution, and was handled by Ogilvy & Mather India. Says a senior official who was involved in the campaign: “This was the quickest advertising turnaround in the company’s history.” An integrated brand campaign normally takes six weeks.



Three Indian airlines – Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines & Go Air – all tired to outdo each other in their outdoor advertising campaigns.

It all started when Jet Airlines innocently put up this billboard title: “We’ve Changed”.
Kingfisher Airlines saw an opportunity and took credit for making them change.
If that wasn’t enough, Go Airlines decided to cash in on the success of the first two billboards and create a broader awareness of the campaign.
There could be a message in this… don’t leave yourself open to “ambush advertising”! Not only did Go get the last word… but they belittled and outwitted the message of the other two airlines.