Last week I tried this trick that I read about on various marketing blogs and asked my little brother (a football fanatic), “Who were the main sponsors of the Football World Cup 2010?”. And to my surprise, he spitted out brands like Pepsi and Nike. If you readers too, agree with this answer, then I’m afraid all of you (and my littler brother) are under the spell of what’s called “ambush marketing”.

Pepsi and Nike are not the official sponsors of the Football World Cup 2010, i.e., they did not pay huge sums of money (like Adidas and Coca Cola) on buying these so called “exclusive rights” but yet was able to make itself look like was an “active participant” during the event.

In a more formalized sense, ambush marketing is an approach that companies use to carry out similar-themed campaigns in the time frame of a particular event without mentioning the event itself. The bold highlight is important because that is exactly what fuels the significance of the word, “ambush”. So, the similar theme for Pepsi and Nike’s case would be the World Cup (without specifically mentioning the word, ‘World Cup’) and they had their own respective campaigns (for Nike it was ‘Write the Future’ and as for Pepsi, it was body paint Football Stars)

The reason as to why I’m talking about this is that this fits well with what we’ve been discussing in class regarding “Marketing Ethics”. Did Pepsi and Nike do the “right thing” by achieving success through ambush marketing? Is it unfair from Adidas’ or Coca Cola’s perspective that they had to pay tons of money to be center stage of such a big event but yet Pepsi and Nike were able to get as much success without having to pay so much?

The issue of ethics doesn’t just lie under ambush marketing but is applicable everywhere. The issue of ethics can also be seen in my fellow classmate, Catherine Guan’s (https://blogs.ubc.ca/catherineguan) recent blog post where she talked about Benetton’s recent ad depicting famous world figures locking lips to apparently spread a message of “unity and tranquility”. Benetton is a company known for its “shock value” marketing to promote their line of clothing. The company definitely was able to garner attention its way with the release of these photos. In fact even I didn’t know about this company until the news of such ads flooded the media stream (so, it clearly worked Benetton’s way).

So, is it unfair from Adidas’ or Coca Cola’s perspective that they had to pay tons of money to be center stage of such a big event but yet Pepsi and Nike were able to get as much success without having to pay so much? How ethical was it for Benetton to post such an ad? It’s a tricky question to answer but I personally believe that such a question warrants a complicated reply since the situation and the context within which it lies, is in its own nature, quite complicated.

As learnt in our marketing classes, the brand is more than just your logo, advertising, and miscellaneous marketing campaigns. What is important to keep in mind is that the gist of a company’s brand comes from its ability to execute its promises and meet the needs/wants of the customer. To take a step further, the company’s brand can also be seen as a type of criteria. Based on this criteria, customers judge and reflect on the company overall because it’s all about whether the customers’ needs/wants are met. So, a company’s brand is (to an extent) a reflection its reputation in the market, not just its physical logo, advertising approaches etc. Coca Cola is an excellent example of this. Coca Cola aims to provide beverages to potential consumers and delivering the promises of Coca Cola being part of family-oriented drink and painted as a beverage that inspires optimism, happiness and affection. That is exactly what consumers who use Coca Cola perceive the drink as (looking at the brand as a criteria in terms of meeting needs/wants).

In contrast, let’s take a look at Enron. Enron (before the scandal) was seen as a company every other company learnt from in terms of the success the company had presented in the market. At that time the Enron brand had a very strong reputation as it was at the time (in the eyes of consumers) a brand that had kept its promise of meeting the needs/wants of consumers and keeping them satisfied. However after the scandal, everything quickly changed, the company’s rep also did a complete 180 on its head. As a result the Enron brand is synonymous and to some extent, interchangeable with concepts like fraud, cheat and never focusing on the needs/wants of the customers.