Sunday, June 13, 2010

The "Bad" Side of Social Media: Ambush Marketing

"Social media has made ambush marketing easier, simply because of the virality of it," said Alex Burmaster, vice president of communications for Nielsen. "Some people call it an echo chamber." Ambush marketing is when a company not affiliated with an event like the World Cup runs an ad campaign that links the advertiser to that event in the consumer's mind without saying the company is a sponsor. Both Nike and Pepsi are guilty of this practice in "promoting" the 2010 World Cup. The practice affects FIFA because if it cannot protect the real sponsors of the event, it will not be able to collect top dollar for sponsorship contracts. Those contracts are worth approximately $1.6 billion. Below is a link to a Reuters article with some more information.


http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSTRE65A5AO20100611

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