ASIA PACIFIC: CHINA

Beijing Olympics 2008: One world, one dream...…and five mascots
Author: Robin Teow, Lehman, Lee & Xu

Beijing issues stern warning to show stealers

The most spectacular sporting event on the planet will lift its curtain in less than two years in one of the most vibrant and dynamic cities in the world. While Beijing is still abuzz with the hum of bulldozers and construction works, sponsors for the 2008 Games have kicked off their intense marketing blitz in a race for marketing gold.

Today, the Olympics are more than just heartwarming entertainment or a great get-together for athletes from around the globe to see who is fastest, strongest, or who breaks more world records. They have been virtually transformed from a venue for unity and international amateur competition to a moneymaking bonanza, becoming one of the most sought-after channels for advertising and marketing. The monetary benefits of the Olympics are clearly evident in the willingness and eagerness of some companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Kodak and Lenovo to splash out hundreds of millions of dollars to join The Olympic Partnership program, a program which grants sponsors exclusive worldwide rights to use the Olympic rings in product labeling and advertising within a product category, in order to cash in on what is undoubtedly the most eye-catching and showy spending extravaganza in commercial history.

With more than 5 billion viewers and listeners from over 200 countries and regions expected to watch or listen to Olympic broadcasts, not to mention China’s booming consumer revolution, the Beijing Olympics presents a unique business opportunity and serves as a powerful marketing platform for international and domestic companies to build global brands and connect with hundreds of millions of consumers. For foreign enterprises wanting to tap the huge and flourishing Chinese market, a partnership with the 2008 Olympics offers an excellent opportunity for them to showcase their products and/or services, leveraging the Olympics momentum in order to enhance their brand recognition and, more importantly, build guan xi (connections) throughout China.

In light of the huge financial impact of the Games and in particular, China’s enormous, red-hot market for the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, some companies will deliberately find innovative ways to ingeniously associate themselves with the event and to misappropriate or capitalize on the resulting goodwill and popularity without paying for the right to do so. This is habitually referred to as ambush marketing or parasite marketing, and is often a hybrid of false advertising and intellectual property infringing acts. Broadly speaking, ambush marketing is a term used to describe any attempt by a company to exploit media attention or capitalize on the popularity of an event to promote its own products or services. In a narrow sense, ambush marketing refers to the direct and intentional efforts of one company to eclipse and to take the edge off a competitor’s official association with an event. The main objective of ambush marketing is, au fond, to confuse or mislead the public into believing that the company has an official connection with the event by revolving its advertising campaign around the event.

While ambush marketing can occur at any event, it is most rampant in the sports marketing arena thanks to the potential universal audience that international sports events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics attract and their unequalled popularity. Some famous examples of ambush marketing in Olympics history include:

At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, sponsored by Visa, American Express ran ads claiming that Americans do not need a ‘visa’ to travel to Norway.
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Nike strategically placed its slogans a ‘stone’s throw away’ from the main stadiums of the Games and erected a “Nike Village” in the vicinity of the official Atlanta Olympic Sponsor Village, thus overshadowing Adidas’s promotional efforts as the official sponsor.
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Qantas Airlines devised the slogan “The Spirit of Australia”, which sounded remarkably similar to the Games’ slogan “Share the Spirit”.

Strictly speaking, ambush marketing does not involve infringement or illegal use of trademarks or symbols, thus providing no legal basis for an action especially if ambushers know what they are doing. Companies merely share an event’s publicity by attaching themselves to the event using creative marketing strategies without paying sponsorship fees to become the official sponsors. So why are event organizers or legitimate sponsors making such a ‘hoo-ha’ about this topic? It is argued that ambush marketing significantly subverts the integrity of an event and its ability to entice future sponsors. Ambushers create confusion among consumers, for that reason, negating the official sponsors’ clear recognition for their sponsorship role. In addition, unauthorized associations diminish the value of the legitimate sponsors’ investment, threaten the exclusivity of rights granted to them, and discredit their marketing efforts.

In order to maintain the dignity of the Olympics and to protect its respective IP rights, Beijing, keen to showcase its commitment to fight intellectual property offences and fully aware that its already fragile reputation concerning intellectual property rights and their enforcement is once again subject to intense international scrutiny with the hosting of the 2008 Olympics, has pledged to get tough on ambush marketing. A series of Olympics-specific intellectual property decrees and regulations such as the Beijing Regulations on the Intellectual Property Protection of Olympics-related Intellectual Property Rights and the Regulations on the Protection of Olympic Symbols have been specifically designed to protect the Games’ image. These regulations strictly outlaw any activities that might deceive the public into thinking that there is an existing sponsorship or other supportive relationship between the ambush marketers and the owners of the Olympic symbols. The Chinese Administration of Industry and Commerce has been given a significant amount of discretion to deal with ambushers. Beijing Municipal People’s Government has also vowed to carry out special operations to suppress ambush marketing. Furthermore, educational campaigns will be launched to enlighten the public about the fundamentals of intellectual property and the phenomenon of ambush marketing. It is proposed that Chinese people will, for the first time, appreciate what intellectual property infringement means on a national scale through China’s protection of Olympics-related intellectual property rights.

The Olympic Games are an unavoidable stage for ambush marketing. Ambushers, with profits as their stimulus, will inevitably attempt to devise sophisticated and inventive strategies to accomplish their missions. While it is impossible to anticipate all avenues for ambush marketing with, more often than not, the bulk of such activity notoriously difficult to prove, those planning to crash what is set to be one of the most expensive and spectacular summer parties ever held in the history of the Olympics are strongly advised to reconsider, as Beijing steps up unprecedented offensive and defensive measures to inflict maximum penalties on and wipe out freeloaders.

*Ambush marketing will be covered more extensively during the advertising seminar entitled “Global Perspective on China Advertising Industry: Insight, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth” to be held in Beijing at the China World Hotel on November 9, 2006 - an event organized by LEHMAN, LEE & XU in association with GALA.