CROSS SWORD

Ambush marketing doesn’t really help brands

IS AMBUSH MARKETING JUST A SHORT-LIVED BUZZ AROUND A

BRAND?

ANISHA MOTWANI

CMO MAX NEW YORK LIFE

AGREE. Ambush marketing always causes many chuckles down the aisle. But in most of the
cases, it's one marketing team taking potshots at another, where the consumer is not necessarily
the focus. Building a brand, on the contrary, is a continuous, long-term journey. Let’s look at
some of the main parameters for building a brand and evaluate how ambush marketing stacks up.

Consumer at the core: Ambush marketing usually builds on environmental context or a

marketing initiative of competition. An insight that needs to be at the core of any communication
very often suffers. The cola wars have been in existence for a fairly long period of time, but the
juggernaut of Coke continues to move on. If it’s not environment, then it’s the executional idea
that is the spring board.
Brand consistency: The linkages with the brand idea, therefore, become very difficult and
opportunistic. The messaging a brand imparts usually radiates from its essence—the heart and
soul of the brand. It stays consistent over a long period of time to cement the relationship with
consumers. When a brand ambushes – the otherwise well preached theorems of marketing take a
backseat. Every brand, ideally, has a different makeup vis-a-vis its competition. If we indulge in
potshots at another, the signals sort of merge. (Realism, one thought, was at the core of Dove,
pray, what is the link with Mystery?)
Long-term vision: Building a brand requires a long-term vision with relevant short-term
milestones. There are big variable factors like changing consumer habits, product changes and
regulatory changes to name a few. These are complex variables by themselves. Ambush
marketing creates diversions that can drive a plan awry. It can undo the concerted planned efforts
of your own brand and divert large sums of investments.
A sound marketing plan needs to and will build in probable competitive activity. It needs to
factor in multiple scenarios. When you have a response factored in, the response (ambush)
doesn’t bother. So it’s possible to plan in advance.
Even in a war, ambush/guerilla warfare is the recourse of the upstart. Not that of the ruler. The
ruler always has a plan. At best, ambush can be a tactical initiative. A series of tactical initiatives
cannot be a full-blown strategy. In the end, there is no replacement to sticking to a plan.
PRATHAP SUTHAN

NCD, CHEIL COMMUNICATIONS

DISAGREE. Not only is ambush marketing good for brands, it’s better for consumers. If a brand
smashes through, thanks to wicked marketing, hurray! People don’t see it as unethical, unlike
quibbling us, media and ad guys. For the people, it’s exciting advertising and radical thinking. All
told; loud applause for the brand. Marketing is unabashed war, with immediate profits to be won.
No waiting. No watching. Attack meekness. Plunder weakness. Deliver shock and awe.
Our businesses have mutated into the art of separating money from customers. The writing is
black. If you aren’t considering ambush, someone will ambush your brand.
In the HUL versus P&G instance, the latter played into the former’s hands. It was asking to be
ambushed. Teasers —the Pantene kind — have long gone out of the arsenal, and instead, surprise
and timing are in.
Dove is now sharper, snappier and sassier. And as a consumer, I flushed boring Pantene.
Let’s face it, consumers love cheeky brands. Remember Pepsi’s nothing official about it? A
masterstroke that made Pepsi younger, and reinforced its maverick brand attitude.
While Davids will win hearts when they keel Goliaths over, ambush marketing isn’t something
big brands cannot do. They must. It makes a brand come alive. It gets a new energy. It engages
people. And it gives them a lot to talk, plenty to chat, enough to SMS.
Today, with the help of technology, ambush ideas will be instant and deadly. A brand can be a
made or ridiculed overnight.
It’s all about being clever, being contemporary, and being able to deliver visibility, relevance
and magnetism.
Despite 360 degrees of brand fortification, and with every competitive brand blatantly
plagiarizing products and technologies, sabotaging each other is no longer sacrilege.
It’s cool actually. And it rocks the imagination of the consumers. With 60% of India below 30
years, old fogey advertising better get in some new spunk to ram down the walls of our youth.
One last nail. If ambush marketing isn’t a brand-building idea, why are more brands getting into
it? And why on earth is Nike just doing it again and again?

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