When ambush marketing is beneficial to sponsorship awareness: creating sponsor distinctiveness using exclusivity and brand juxtaposition

ABSTRACT

Ambush marketing is a contentious practice whereby brands communicate an association with an event without being an official sponsor. Those involved in sponsorship commonly try to limit it by restricting ambusher activity in event contexts. We introduce theoretical ideas around distinctiveness to explain that sponsors may actually fare better in terms of awareness outcomes when ambushers are present in the event context, if they strategically use ambusher presence to highlight their own distinctive sponsor status. Across two experiments we show that sponsor distinctiveness can be achieved by communicating sponsorship exclusivity in ambusher presence, and by facilitating juxtaposition of sponsor and ambusher messages. Results include increased recall to sponsor cues, and reduced recall to ambusher cues. The findings suggest ambusher restrictions may sometimes be counter-productive.

KEYWORDS:

• Ambush marketing
• sponsorship
• memory
• distinctiveness
• brand juxtaposition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clinton S. Weeks

Clinton S. Weeks is a Senior Lecturer in the QUT Business School at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. He has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and marketing from the University of Queensland in Australia. His work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising, Psychology & Marketing, and Memory & Cognition.

Peter J. O’Connor

Peter J. O’Connor is an Associate Professor at the QUT Business School at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. He has a Ph.D. in organisational psychology from the University of Queensland in Australia. His work has appeared in journals such as Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Personality, European Journal of Psychological Assessment, and Journal of Individual Differences.

Brett A. S. Martin

Brett A. S. Martin is a Professor in Marketing at the QUT Business School at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. He has a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Otago in New Zealand. His work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Letters, and Psychology & Marketing.