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Ambush Marketing

What is ambush marketing?

Does anyone know who is the official sponsor for the 2000 Sydney Olympics between Qantas and Ansett? What about National Australia Bank versus Westpac? Do u guys know who the official sponsor was? The answer is Ansett for the Airline Company, and Westpac for the Bank industry.
However, many people think vice-versa

Ambushing is defined as a company’s intentional efforts to weaken its competitor’s official sponsorship by engaging in promotions and advertising that trade off the event or property’s goodwill while seeking to confuse the buying public as to which company really holds official sponsorship rights. It occurs when a company that has no formal rights as an official sponsor, associates its own brand with a sport event with the intent of communicating the false impression that it is a sponsor. Those companies find ways to promote themselves in connection with the same event, without paying the sponsorship fee and without breaking any laws.

Ambushing has two complementary goals. The first is to weaken the public’s perceptions of a competitor’s official association with an event, so official sponsors gain less benefit from that association than might have been anticipated.
The second goal is to associate indirectly with the sports event in order to gain some of the recognition and benefits by being as an official sponsor.
Ambush marketing tactics allow a company to associate with a major sports property without large-scale investment in securing sponsorship rights. Therefore, it allows creating the opportunity to achieve brand awareness and brand image objectives at a low cost.

Ambushing companies are usually the competitors of an official sponsor. Companies that cannot afford to buy a sponsorship, or choose not to, may be attracted to an ambush strategy for defensive and not just offensive reasons.

There are several well-known examples of ambush marketing. On 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Nike sponsors press...