(by lingling wei phd student supervised by professor martin kretschmer and professor ruth soetendorp)

on 30 march 2006, london olympic games and paralympic games act 2006 (hereinafter referred as the london act) received royal assent. one of the main things this act does is to outlaw ambush marketing, which threatens the economic well-being of delivering the london 2012 olympics. 

broadly speaking, there are two forms of ambush marketing: by association and by intrusion. the former seeks to suggest a non-existing association between ambush marketers and an event. the latter would rather to give an ambush marketer’s own brand or corporate exposure through the publicity generated by the event  without the authorization of the event organiser (dean 2003).

the first ambush marketing incident happened between fuji and kodak the los angels olympic games in 1984. fuji was the world wide sponsor for the games. by spending considerably less, kodak became the official film for the us track and field team and promoted its contribution to the olympic games. fuji's sponsorship was thus greatly undermined. ever since, ambush marketing has haunted all the mega-sporting events.

in 1994, in order to ambush visa's sponsorship in lillehammer winter olympics, american express advertised: if you are going to lillehammer this winter, you just need a passport and don't need visa.

this summer mars repackaged its chocolate bars for fifa world cup. the word “believe” was used to replace the trade mark “mars” on the new package, advocating people to have faith in the england team and believe that england would win the game. although the team lost at a quarter final, mars won the attention of the football fans in uk without paying any sponsorship fee or even claiming itself sponsors.

the existing laws such as intellectual property laws and unfair competition law are not well designed for catching ambush marketing. creative ambush marketers know how to circumvent the laws. brandweek (1996) describes this as “the laws aren’t on the books yet. get away what you can get away with while you can get away with it”.

for the sydney olympics, australia firstly started to address the problem of ambush marketing by introducing special legislation. its successors follow suit.  so far special legislation has been enacted for the athens olympics, the beijing olympics and the london olympics. using the olympic symbols and words is a main method for ambush marketers to get associated with the games. these statutes are similar in terms of protecting the olympic-related symbols and words but the protection scope of such words and symbols varies between them.

the london act has encountered strong opposition for its wide protection scope. its protection scope is based on that of the sydney games act 1996 but extends further. under the london act, expressions such as “london 2012”, “games gold” or “2012 medal” are prohibited for unauthorised use. moreover the london act allows the secretary of general to add more expressions on its protection list; thereby it potentially protects more words and symbols.

on one hand, the more extensive protection of the symbols and words that can be used to refer to the games will help minimise ambush marketing. on the other hand, it means more words and symbols are taken out of the public domain. this, from economic point of view, adds more cost to commercial communication and also diminishes the commercial speech freedom around the games. it is for this reason that the london act attracts harsh criticism. london's evening standard reports that the institute of practitioners in advertising has written to the department of culture, media and sport, calling for it to rethink the proposed change to uk law that it describes as “a step too far”.

furthermore, the london act is not very effective in dealing with ambush marketing. using the olympic symbols and words is not the only way for ambush marketers to get associated with the games. in other words, the london act cannot catch all ambush marketing by association. moreover, it does not touch ambush marketing by intrusion at all.

this, however, does not mean ambush marketing will be out of control in the london olympics. organisers of mega sporting events have developed practical policing strategy to combat ambush marketing, which have proved to be very effective in preventing and catching it. such strategies normally govern venue, broadcasting, athletes and audience. in fifa 2006, around 1000 dutch footballs fans were asked to remove their trousers containing commercial logos by a (non-sponsoring) beer brand before they entered the venue. the international olympic committee has successfully employed similar policing strategies. presumably we will see many such measures at the london olympics.