For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, Adam Sauer defines it best in his article "Ambush Marketing: Steals The Show" when he states, "ambush marketing--a term often hissed in industry circles--occurs when one brand pays to become an official sponsor of an event and another competing brand attempts to cleverly connect itself with the event, without paying the sponsorship fee and, more frustratingly, without breaking any laws".A recent guest speaker in my PR Planning and Problem Solving class named Steve Remington spoke to us about ambush marketing. He explained that nowadays, professionals spend just as much time trying to prevent ambush marketing/PR as they do promoting their paid sponsors.
Steve has assisted with the planning of the Eugene Celebration for the last couple years, and part of his job is to make sure that paid sponsors don't take advantage of their privlidges and that unpaid brands don't intrude on sponsor's benefits.
Although these tactics can be very effective, they undermine the integrity of events and damage their ability to attract future sponsors. In my opinion, tactics like these are what gives PR professionals a bad name.
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