Who really won
in Vancouver: Ambushers
Four of the five top brands at the Winter Games
By Toni Fitzgerald
Mar 23, 2010
The International Olympic Committee cracked down hard on ambush marketing at this year's Winter Games, but it seems the marketers remained one step ahead.
Six of the top 10 brands at last month's Vancouver Games were ambushers, or brands with no official affiliation with the Olympics, according to the TrendTopper MediaBuzz Ambush Index, a list put out by the Austin-Texas-based Global Language Monitor, which ranks perceived Olympic sponsors according to their presence in the global media.
That includes four of the top five brands, led by Howe Sound Brewing.
P&G, a U.S. Olympic Committee partner, was the highest-ranking official sponsor at No. 2.
Though these brands had no official Olympic presence, they managed to get themselves linked to the Games in the mind of the public by using Games-like imagery, such as skiers or ice skaters, in their ads, employing past Olympians in their campaigns, or setting up displays in Vancouver near where the Games took place.
"Vancouver was easier to ambush than Beijing [in 2008] because of the relative compactness of the Games," says Paul J.J. Payack, president and chief word analyst at GLM.
"However the IOC is beginning to enforce rules that appear to most outsiders as beyond the bounds of reasonableness. (Such as the prohibition of the words 'winter' and 'gold.' This would certainly be considered a faux pas in the gentlemanly and storied past of the 'amateur athlete.')"
The greater restrictions simply forced the brands to think a little harder.
Payack says marketers such as Howe, Blenz Coffee, Lululemon, Scotiabank, and Roots, all Canadian brands, achieved good results by having a big physical presence in Vancouver, holding events that were vaguely linked to the Games, and employing smart social media tactics.
Of course, most of these ambush marketers object to the ambush label. They say they're simply positioning their brands in a savvy manner, never mind that it sometimes saps the brand exclusivity that sponsors are promised by the Olympics.
This year, for example, ambusher Pepsi Co. topped official sponsor Coca-Cola on the TrendTopper index. Ditto ambusher Verizon over AT&T.
Meanwhile, the IOC has become even more zealous in guarding its brand what with the worldwide economic downturn that cost it several global sponsors, the highest level of partnership, between the 2008 and 2010 Games.
The IOC will likely need to increase its vigilance, as Payack doesn't see the ambush trend abating anytime soon.
"For the London Games, we think this trend will continue and ambush marketers will have a stronger presence than ever before," he says.
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