What on earth is ambush marketing?

It's almost as (un)popular as the vuvuzela and its certainly got the media talking: mission accomplished! Why has a couple of dozen pretty girls in orange mini-dresses caused such an almighty stir? As the official beer of the 2010 World Cup, you can't really blame Budweiser bosses for being a little put out that the efforts of the Bavaria Brewery to "highjack" publicity for their mini-dress stunt have proved so effective when they have spent millions on an official sponsorship deal.

Ambush marketing in its broadest sense means piggybacking a brand onto the back of an event for which the brand is not an official sponsor. As in this example, it can be more effective than official sponsorship or it can completely backfire. Some would argue that the fact some of the minidress-clad girls ended up in front of a South African court is negative for the brand but in many respects it just gets more column inches for the story.

Sports events seem to be a magnet for this type of campaign - I experienced ambush marketing at first hand when I visited Wimbledon Tennis Championships a few years ago. Tabloid newspaper The Sun had printed a few thousand flags of St George (complete with red and white Sun logo) onto A4 card and were handing them out with bottles of sun cream to the assembled Henman fans in the Wimbledon queue. On entry to the All England Club we thought our bags were being searched for bombs - in fact the stringent security staff were confiscating these promotional flags along with almost anything else with a logo on it.

The London Olympics will no doubt bring this type of marketing to our attention again - I suppose my challenge as a marketing person is to come up with a superbly creative way to get my clients' brands in front of this global audience without the hefty sponsorship deal. Better get my head down for the next two years to come up with some ideas...

As reported in many places, but you can read more from the BBC on the subject of Ambush Marketing here