Ambush Marketing at the Olympic Games

Perhaps encouraged by Li Ning’s success at Beijing in 2008, some marketers plan to ambush official sponsors of Canada’s 2010 Winter Olympics. The games will be conducted in British Columbia February 12-28 by the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC)

According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper website, there is “a growing army of “ambush marketers,” using the nation's unprecedented interest in the Winter Games to sell products and services without paying the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the privilege.”

It is an old but growing problem for the Olympic games and their sponsors. The vulnerability of the sponsors was brought into the world spotlight at the 2008 Beijng Summer Olympics. Li Ning, one of China’s greatest athletes of all time, was secretly and justifiably chosen to light the Olympic cauldron during the games’opening ceremony. The honor brought him, and the sports apparel company he founded, worldwide publicity and a prominent spot in Olympic history.

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