A brand engaging in ambush marketing is not just unethical or desperate but cheap and has a very high propensity to maltreat its customers.
Ambush marketing is not creative or clever marketing but a show of inferiority complex. If a brand can stoop so low to attempt stabbing another brand in the back or “stealing” from a property, the brand can do much to cut corners with the consumers. Such brands, like Paddy Power, will choose a vulnerable struggler like Niklas Bendtner to ambush and steal the show at the Euros. See the difference? Messi, Van Persie, Ronaldo or Drogba will not go near such.
What a brand association?
If you are serious about your brand and you are looking for an innovative and effective way to engage the consumers, invest in that property and hire creative marketers that would milk that property to give it the real value for your investment. Look at Visa and the 2012 Olympics. Investing in such a property as the Olympics does not come cheap but imagine the series of consumer promotions Visa has activated on that property. Effectively, Visa has succeeded in pushing Mastercard to a lower level in the UK and possibly in Europe in the past months. In an economy which card payment is very high, the usage of Visa branded cards is on the rise and will dwarf Mastercard during the games as only Visa card will be accepted at the venues. I wonder why Paddy Power did not invest in Euros 2012 to acquire the window to increase punters’ activities on its platform during the games.
The right way to build and sustain your brand equity is to have the right proposition, know your customer and meet his needs, find the right points of connection and invest in them; invest in fishing and fish where the fishes are. It is important to recognise that competition is an effective grower of a category; be smart enough to understand how competition is growing your category and decipher the share of the category you want. Again, it is all about presenting the apt value proposition at the right time. If you meet my need, I would pay the price, but I will be satisfied.
More importantly, band wagon mentality is a desperado mentality; there are untapped properties you can own. Look for them and spend time to build and own them. The idea of running after established and saturated properties would lead a brand to do the wrong things. I am sure Paddy Power will pay the £80,000 UEFA fine dished out to Nicklas Bendtner and he probably got a good sum to do what he did. This does not change the fact it was more of a show of shame for the brand.
‘Tope Ayedun is a UK-based Marketing practitioner. {jcomments on}
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