The+Legal+and+Practical+Prevention+of+Ambush+Marketing+in+Sports+by+Chris+Murphy

Chris Murphy

Looking for specific examples of paid expert testimony analyzed in an article proved more difficult than I had imagined. To remedy this lack of information, I broadened my search to include other examples of misleading association in advertising. What I found was The Legal and Practical Prevention of Ambush Marketing in Sports, which can be summarized as follows.

The article opens with a brief definition of Ambush Marketing. Ambush marketing is a technique used by advertisers to associate them with an event or, in this case, sporting competition without the consent of the party associated with the event. It continues to describe the act as performed during the promotion of the event and not necessarily during the event itself; this is in order to create the maximum amount of consumer attention, while attracting little attention from the event’s associated party.

This form of marketing bears similarities to using a paid expert method. By associating the product/service with a more respected or known entity, the advertisers associate those same feelings toward the entity with the product/service. The same phenomenon can be seen in pharmaceutical advertising when a doctor endorses the product; even though the medicine is relatively unknown, the support of a physician puts the same confidence consumers have in that doctor into said medicine.

The article then explains the types of ambush marketing seen in advertising today and lists unauthorized or unofficial publications and unauthorized sales promotion activity as examples. It also describes the type of organizations most likely trying to imitate these examples in the market today. Direct competitors of a product already associated with the event or competitors with the event itself were thought to be the most obvious culprits.

The article continues on to describe the prevention methods needed to eliminate ambush marketing. This section of the article did not relate to my topic, since my topic focuses on the application of misleading endorsements or sponsorships of a product /service.

Source

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