b
O
er
Business Horizons (2010) 53, 281—290a Segal Graduate School of Business, Simon Fraser University, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 1W6,
Canada
bMcCallum Graduate School of Business, Bentley University, Waltham, MA 02452, U.S.A.
cDivision of Industrial Marketing, Lulea˚ University of Technology, Lulea˚, Sweden & Managing Director,
Aha! Research, Hong Kong
1. You don’t always get what you pay
for
Sponsorship is bigbusiness.Major international sport-
ing events–—such as the Summer and Winter Olympic
Games,and theWorldSoccerCup–—commandsponsor
fees running into the hundreds of millions of dollars,
via which each global sponsor acquires marketing
rights to the all-inclusive use of the event, its images,
and logos. Worldwide sponsorship generated $663
million in revenue for the 2001—2004 Salt Lake
City/Athens Olympic cycle. This total was easily ex-
ceeded by the Torino/Beijing cycle, in which reve-
nues jumped 31% to $866 million; 11 multinational
sponsors paid an average of $72 million each. More
remarkably, these numbers represent only the fees
for sponsorship rights; sponsors still had to pay for the
advertising itself. Subsequent estimates placed total
KEYWORDS
Ambush marketing;
Sponsorship;
Sports marketing
Abstract Sponsorship of large sporting and cultural events has become a major
marketing communication tool, particularly when firms obtain exclusive rights and
garner the hype associatedwith this honor. Concomitantly, ambushmarketing–—defined
as attempts by competitors toexploit theevent–—has also increased inprominence. This
article outlines what is known as the Li Ning affair, whereby major Olympic sponsor
Adidas was ambushed by lesser-known Chinese sportswear company Li Ning, whose
namesake founder was the most decorated Chinese Olympian and who lit the Olympic
flameat the 2008 BeijingOlympiad. Data collected immediately following the closing of
the Beijing Games isolates what we call the Li Ning effect–—or, being incorrectly
identified as an official sponsor–—and the positive effects this has on measures of brand
attitude and recommendation likelihood. As presented herein, seven lessons about
ambush marketing can be derived from the Li Ning affair, which sponsors and those
considering sponsorship opportunity might wish to learn.
# 2010 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: lpitt@sfu.ca (L. Pitt), mparent@sfu.ca
(M. Parent), pberthon@bentley.edu (P. Berthon),
petersteyn@gmail.com (P.G. Steyn).
0007-6813/$ — see front matter # 2010 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2010.01.002Event sponsorship and am
Lessons from the Beijing
Leyland Pitt a,*, Michael Parent a, Piush marketing:
lympics
re Berthon b, Peter G. Steyn c
www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor
Olympic ad spending at an additional $1.5 billion. clothing and footwear. Li Ning, the company, was
282 L. Pitt et al.Indeed, Visa alone was estimated to have spent $886
million on its official sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic
Games (CNBC, 2008).
It can cost $200 million to sponsor a soccer team
in Europe’s Champions League, or to sponsor the
UEFA Champions League–—the club championship of
European football–—and all that buys is the right to
use the name of an event, a team, or an organiza-
tion. Activation–—or promotions, competitions,
television advertising during breaks, corporate hos-
pitality, and so forth–—can easily multiply a sponsor’s
budget two or three times over, for in sponsorship it
is not what the company has, it is what it does with it
(‘‘Sponsorship Form,’’ 2008). When a firm invests
hundreds of millions of dollars in a sponsorship, and
many millions more on marketing efforts to exploit
that sponsorship, it embarks on a promotional jour-
ney that may help establish it as the uncontested
brand in its category; consider Coca-Cola (soft
drinks), Visa (credit cards), and McDonald’s (fast
food) as examples. At the same time, it exposes
itself to an array of counter-attacks by competitors
who have either chosen not to exploit the sponsor-
ship opportunity, or who have simply not had the
resources to do so. The consequences of these
competitor reactions can be serious. Despite the
efforts of event organizers and legislation enacted
by host governments (whether genuine or sham) to
protect sponsors, it seems that some competitor
reaction is inevitable. Recent history provides a
number of worthwhile lessons for marketers and
sponsors to learn, or ignore at their peril.
As regards Olympic Games, the choice of last
torchbearer–—the athlete who lights the stadium
flame–—usually has some symbolic significance. At
the 1960 Tokyo Olympiad, for example, the last
torchbearer was a person born on the day the atomic
bomb exploded over Hiroshima. The choice was felt
to symbolize Japan’s rebirth from World War II
(Balfour, 2008). China’s choice as torchbearer for
the 2008 Beijing Games was Li Ning, a former gym-
nast who won six medals–—including three golds–—
during the 1984 Los Angeles Games, China’s first big
sortie into the Olympics. Before a packed stadium
and a worldwide television audience estimated at 4
billion viewers, Li Ning ran around the inside perim-
eter of the Bird’s Nest arena and was hoisted 75 feet
in the air by cables, before lighting the Olympic
cauldron. A true hero of the Chinese nation and the
most decorated athlete at the Los Angeles Games,
Li Ning seemed a natural choice to light the Beijing
flame. Since retiring from gymnastics, he had also
become a successful entrepreneur. Capitalizing on
his personal brand equity, he founded Li Ning,
an athletic apparel company that specialized innot an official footwear sponsor of the Beijing
Olympic Games; the German firm Adidas had
purchased those rights.
More than a billion people in China alone saw
Li Ning’s run across the rafters. It is unlikely that
these viewers thought just of the man, and not of his
shoes. Li Ning was broadcast on Chinese state tele-
vision, countless other international channels, and
was featured on the front page of every national
newspaper in China the following day. Almost ev-
eryone in China knew that Li Ning owned a sports
shoe company; outside of the country, the many
hundreds of millions who did not know this learned it
very quickly. This easily made the event the greatest
2 or 3 minutes of free advertising in history–—for
Li Ning, but not for Adidas. Some might call the
Li Ning coup lucky. Perhaps the choice of Li Ning as
the flame lighter was simply serendipitous: local
hero is invited by well-intentioned government
and Games officials to perform a symbolic duty.
He happens to own a sports footwear company,
but this does not influence anyone’s thinking, and
the consequences are not anticipated. The world
media, however, saw this in a different light; they
viewed it as ‘‘the boldest case of Ambush Marketing
ever pulled off’’ (Balfour, 2008).
In this article, we present some evidence of what
we term the Li Ning effect, and use the affair to
draw some important lessons for marketers in gen-
eral and potential sponsors specifically. First, we
briefly review some of the literature related to
ambush marketing and its prescriptions. Next, we
provide a brief overview of the results of a study of
sponsorship recall and related effects following the
2008 Beijing Olympics, and then show how the
Li Ning affair illustrates the intersection of sponsor-
ship and ambush marketing. Finally, by combining
the evidence from the study with the prescriptions
of the literature on sponsorship and ambush mar-
keting, we lay out seven lessons we think can be
learned from the Li Ning affair.
2. Ambush marketing
The term ambush marketing was first coined
by Bayless (1988) to describe the purposeful and
false association by a company not sponsoring an
event toward the end of deriving benefits similar to
those afforded official sponsors. In a narrow sense,
Schmitz (2005) defines ambush marketing as the
direct efforts of one party to weaken or attack
a competitor’s official association with a sports
organization acquired through the payment of
sponsorship fees. In a broader sense, he sees the
phenomenon as referring to a company’s attempt to evaluations regarding the same object (Thompson,
Event sponsorship and ambush marketing: Lessons from the Beijing Olympics 283capitalize on the goodwill, reputation, and populari-
ty of a particular event by creating an association
without theauthorization or consent of thenecessary
parties. For example, during television broadcasts of
the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games–—sponsored in
part by McDonald’s–—Dave Thomas, the founder of
Wendy’s, appeared in ads which portrayed him in
winter sports garb and settings. In 1992, American
Express (AMEX) bought substantial advertising time
on major networks to counter Visa’s official sponsor-
ship of the Barcelona Summer and Albertville Winter
Games. While AMEX didn’t use the Olympic symbol
or name, its ads referred to ‘‘winter fun and games’’
and showed the French Alps, and stated that ‘‘to visit
Spain, you don’t need a visa.’’ The International
Olympic Committee (IOC) threatened to sue
American Express, but ultimately did not file a law-
suit (Moore, 1993).
Event organizers’ efforts to deal with ambush
marketing were brought into sharp focus by Nike’s
antics during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Rather
than match rival Reebok’s spending of $50 million,
Nike plastered the city with billboards, handed out
swoosh banners to wave at the events, and erected a
huge Nike Center overlooking the stadium. Now,
ambush marketing perturbed not only sports bodies
such as the IOC; host cities and even entire nations
became galvanized by what was perceived as a
threat to local integrity.
3. Why does ambush marketing work?
Ambush marketing is clearly effective; its ubiquity
attests to this. To understandwhy it works, onemust
look at how it works in the mind of the consumer.
Marketers would do well to remember the roles that
schemata and ambivalence play in consumer sense-
making as they view events and the marketing
communication that accompanies them. These con-
cepts can help explain the cognitive mechanisms
behind successful ambush marketing, as well as the
potential pitfalls of certain preventative strategies.
A schema is a cognitive framework for understand-
ing and remembering information, and expectations
based on it will affect the judgment, memory, and
use of new information (Mandler, 1984).
Consumer attitudes are also ambivalent. While
traditional marketing holds that attitudes are either
positive or negative, there is evidence from psy-
chology that people experience simultaneous but
separate positive and negative attitudes about the
same phenomenon (Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson,
1997); indeed, ambivalence is defined as the con-
current existence of strong positive and negativeZanna, & Griffin, 1995). This is often overlooked in
the sponsorship arena, whereby overzealous spon-
sor/organizer enforcement can result in the nega-
tive attitude overwhelming the positive attitude in
the mind of the consumer. An excellent example of
this is the 2006 soccer World Cup, where orange
plastic Leeuwenhosen were given out by Bavaria, a
Dutch brewery. Officials demanded that fans remove
the offending garments, as Budweiser was the tour-
nament’s official sponsor. Many fans protested by
watching the match in their underwear; after the
tournament, many Dutch consumers had a negative
attitude toward Budweiser.
Finally, it is likely that salience weighs more
heavily than questionable ethics in consumers’ per-
ceptions of ambush marketing. Saliency detection is
a key attention mechanism that drives people to
focus their finite cognitive resources on the most
pertinent subset of the available sensory data. Sa-
lient events are those that are unexpected and
difficult to overlook (Treisman & Gelade, 1980),
and indeed, a good deal of ambush marketing relies
on this cognitive mechanism.
4. The Beijing Olympics: A simple
sponsorship study
Before the Beijing Olympiad commenced, we
planned a syndicated study to investigate some sim-
ple but important aspects of sponsorship recognition
and recall, attitudes toward brands, and the likeli-
hood of brand recommendation. The objectives of
the study were to determine whether Chinese re-
spondents were able to correctly identify which
brands within a particular offering category were
Olympic sponsors and which were not, to gauge their
attitudes toward sponsoring- and non-sponsoring
brands, and to determine their likelihood of recom-
mending sponsoring- and non-sponsoring brands. The
survey was conducted during the 3 days immediately
following the closing of the Beijing Olympic Games,
using the China national online consumer panel of
GlobalMarket Insite (GMI), among individuals aged 18
and older. We received a total of 1,331 completed
surveys (see Appendix for details).
4.1. Sponsorship identification
In order to gauge whether respondents were able to
correctly identify sponsors and non-sponsors, they
were presented with three brands within each cat-
egory and simply asked to answer ‘‘Yes’’ or ‘‘No’’
regarding whether that particular brand/company
was a sponsor of the Beijing Olympics. For example,
in the case of credit cards, respondents were re-
quired to answer Yes or No to the question of
whether Visa was a sponsor (it was), MasterCard
was a sponsor (it wasn’t), and American Express was
a sponsor (it wasn’t).
4.2. Attitude toward the brand
To measure attitudes toward the brand(s), we em-
ployed the scale developed by Peracchio and
Meyers-Levy (1994, 1997; see also Meyers-Levy
& Peracchio, 1995). Depending on its application,
this scale consists of 8 items (see Bruner, James, &
Hensel, 2001) that measure a consumer’s evaluation
of a product or brand. The scale may also measure
purchase intention, as well as product quality. High
scores on the scale suggest that the respondent
has a positive evaluation of a particular product
or brand to which they have been exposed. In the
study under focus here, a comparison was only made
between the two major competitors in a category;
for example, in the credit card category, respond-
ents were required to complete the 8-item scale for
both the sponsor (Visa) and the brand regarded
as its major competitor (MasterCard). The items
brand to others. A number of studies have found a
strong correlation between a brand’s growth rate/
profitability and the percentage of consumers who
indicate that they are likely to recommend the
brand to others. Indeed, Reichheld (2003, p. 1)
has called this indicator ‘‘the one number you need
to grow.’’ Following Reichheld, this study utilized an
11-point Likert-type scale anchored on ‘‘0 = Not
likely to recommend the brand at all’’ through
‘‘10 = Extremely likely to recommend the brand.’’
In this study, a comparison was made between the
two major competitors in a category, and in some
categories, between the sponsor and other brands.
So, for example, in the credit card category, re-
spondents were required to indicate on the 11-point
scale how likely they would be to recommend both
the sponsor (Visa) and the brand regarded as its
major competitor (MasterCard).
4.4. Results
A summary of the results for four offering categories
considered in the study is presented in Table 1. The
table describes the percentage of respondents who
correctly identified a sponsoring brand, and correct-
284 L. Pitt et al.
s, a
antare scored on a 7-point semantic differential type
scale.
4.3. Propensity to recommend the brand
A single-item scale was used to measure the likeli-
hood of a respondent recommending a particular
Table 1. Sponsorship recognition, brand attitude score
Company Correctly
identified
(%):
Airlines Air China (Sponsor) 57.1
United 88.9
China Southern 79.5
Beers Tsingtao (Sponsor) 63.8
Heineken 96.1
Carlsberg 85.9
Credit Cards Visa (Sponsor) 65.9
MasterCard 73.2
American Express 83.9
Footwear Adidas (Sponsor) 62.6
Nike 49.9
Li Ning 32.6
* = Sponsor significantly higher than non-sponsor; ** = No signific
significantly higher than sponsorly identified a non-sponsoring brand; for example, in
the case of beers, the sponsor Tsingtao was correctly
identified as such by 63.8% of respondents, and
the non-sponsor Heineken was correctly identified
as such by 96.1% of respondents. The table also
shows the brand attitude and recommendation like-
lihood scores for each brand, and the nature of the
nd recommendation likelihood - 2008BeijingOlympics*
Incorrectly
identified
(%):
Brand
attitude score
(Maximum 7):
Recommendation
likelihood score
(Maximum 10):
42.9 5.28 * 7.25 *
11.1 4.78 5.78
20.5 6.42
36.2 5.69 * 7.91 *
3.9 4.52 4.98
14.1 5.87
34.1 5.34 * 7.15 *
26.8 4.42 6.28
16.1 5.14
37.4 5.28 ** 7.07 **
50.1 5.32 7.15
67.4 7.64 ***
difference between sponsor and non-sponsor; *** = Non-sponsor
differences between these. This is done for each of Major competitor Nike enjoyed a similarly favorable
Event sponsorship and ambush marketing: Lessons from the Beijing Olympics 285the major two brands within a category (sponsor and
nearest competitor), and also for a brand regarded as
one of those likely to be well known among Chinese
consumers (but onlywith regard to sponsorship recall
and recommendation).
As illustrated in Table 1, sponsorship worked
exceedingly well for beer and credit card brands:
sponsors Tsingtao and Visa were correctly identified
as official sponsors, and the non-sponsoring brands
were rightly singled out. In the case of airlines,
sponsorship worked moderately well as regards rec-
ognition, and strongly so as regards correct identifi-
cation of non-sponsorship. In the case of footwear, a
majority of respondents (62.6%) correctly identified
Adidas as the sponsor, but were evenly split regard-
ing non-sponsor Nike. Most significantly, though,
more respondents (67.4%) incorrectly thought
Li Ning was a sponsor–—what we term the Li Ning
effect. Formally, we would define the Li Ning effect
as follows: The Li Ning effect occurs when a brand
ambushes a sponsoring competitor, with the result
that the ambusher achieves higher sponsorship rec-
ognition than the true sponsor. This in turn has
impacts on other aspects of customer behavior.
In terms of brand attitude effects, sponsorship
had a positive impact for beers, credit cards, and
airlines–—the same brands where sponsors were cor-
rectly identified by a majority of respondents and
non-sponsoring brands were also correctly identified
as such. Brand attitude scores for sponsoring brands
were all significantly higher than those for non-
sponsors. In the case of footwear, Adidas’ sponsor-
ship of the Olympiad did not result in a significant
brand attitude advantage over its major rival, Nike.
With regard to recommendation likelihood ef-
fects, the patterns described in the previous para-
graph were more or less duplicated. In the case of
footwear, while there were no significant differ-
ences in recommendation propensity between spon-
sor Adidas and major competitor Nike, the brand
Li Ning (a non-sponsor) enjoyed a significantly higher
recommendation likelihood than did the sponsor,
Adidas–—and, indeed, the other non-sponsor, Nike.
This, we would argue, is due to the Li Ning effect.
In summary, these results indicated that in the
case of three brand categories–—beers, airlines, and
credit cards–—sponsorship was correctly identified
as such, and that this was coupled with higher brand
attitudes and recommendation propensities. In the
category of footwear, the Li Ning effect comes into
play: while respondents recognized Adidas as the
official sponsor, the Li Ning brand was also thought
by a greater number of people to be a sponsor, and
this resulted in a significantly higher likelihood to
recommend for Li Ning over the sponsor Adidas.brand attitude to Adidas, and a similar propensity to
recommend. Given this data, we believe that a
number of lessons for marketers and prospective
sponsors can be learned from the Li Ning affair.
5. Lessons from the Li Ning affair
While properties (e.g., IOC, UEFA) and governments
build protective walls around, and enact legislation
for, event sponsors in order to protect them from
ambush marketing, ambush marketers have become
increasingly cunning. Much like computer viruses
that become smarter and more lethal as antivirus
software becomes more sophisticated, today’s am-
bush marketers don’t merely resort to hanging ban-
ners outside a stadium or placing numerous ads in
local newspapers. Almost two decades ago, Robert
M. Walsh admonished that escalating sponsorship
costs would make the tactic of ambush marketing
even more popular. As such, he recommended that
before marketers decide to invest in sponsorships,
they consider whether competitors might employ
ambush marketing (Hume, 1991). Perhaps if Adidas
had taken this advice, the company would have
found out in advance the lessons that we believe
sponsors may learn from the Li Ning affair.
5.1. Lesson 1: If an ambush were obvious,
it wouldn’t be an ambush
Meenaghan (1996) examined both the phenomenon
of ambush marketing and the main strategies em-
ployed by ambushing companies, and sought to ex-
plore consumer reaction to the practice. He
identified five common strategies that could be used
by ambush marketers, and the counter-measures
that sponsors could take to defend themselves.
The problem with this reasoning is that if a sponsor
knew ahead of time what the ambush strategies
would be, they wouldn’t be strategies, and the spon-
sor wouldn’t be ambushed! For example, no one
couldhave foreseen that defending championLinford
Christie would appear at a press conference wearing
contact lenses showing the Puma AG logo 2 days
before running in the men’s 100 meters at the 1996
Atlanta Games, particularly as Reebok was sponsor-
ing the event. And while Magic Johnson may have
appeared patriotic by draping himself in the U.S. flag
when accepting the gold medal for the Dream Team
at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he was in fact
protecting his big-money deal with Nike by covering
up the logo of official sponsor Reebok on his tracksuit.
An ambush is, by definition, unforeseeable. Prior
to and during the Beijing Games, Adidas might have
been carefully studying major competitors such as 5.3. Lesson 3: Don’t rely on the
286 L. Pitt et al.Nike, Puma, and Reebok. The company might have
been carefully scanning the Beijing skyline for ban-
ners, posters, and aerial sign writing, andmonitoring
broadcast media for ads that mentioned China, Bei-
jing, sports footwear, and the Olympic Games. What
Adidas did not foresee was that a lesser competitor
like Li Ning would succeed in lighting the flame. It’s
not that the firm’s radar wasn’t turned on; it was
simply scanning in the wrong direction. That’s what
made this particular ambush so successful. Perhaps
the best–—and only–—thing a sponsor can do is to
ensure that as many contingencies as possible are
covered in its contract with the property. But, as we
discuss next, don’t always expect the property to
look after you!
5.2. Lesson 2: Don’t always expect the
property to look after you
Most large properties such as the IOC, UEFA, and
similar organizations will have sponsors’ interests
at heart; after all, they rely on sponsors to make
the event financially viable and successful. However,
blind faith in a property’s duty of carewould be naı¨ve
on the part of the sponsor. Properties have a number
of important priorities, of which sponsorships are
only one. For example, the Olympic movement gen-
erated a total of more than $4 billion in revenue for
themost recent Olympic Quadrennial, spanning 2001
through 2004. Of these revenues, 53% were from
broadcasters and 34% were from corporate sponsors
(www.olympic.org). It would seem that property
organizers might give attention to other matters
more readily than sponsorship protection. Further-
more, for the 2008 Beijing Olympiad there were a
record 63 official sponsors, so there is now thedanger
ofmerelybeing lost in thecrowd (McClellan,2008). In
their study of sponsorship and ambush marketing,
Farrelly, Quester, and Greyser (2005) stated surprise
that many sponsors viewed ambush control as the
task and sole duty of theproperty; ‘‘I pay for a service
and I expect it to be mine, and exclusively mine’’
opined one sponsor (p. 344). Such abdication of
responsibility would seem negligent, given the sig-
nificant sums of money at stake.
The IOC did nothing to alert Adidas to the possi-
bility that Li Ning would light the Beijing flame.
There are three plausible explanations for this: (1)
They could have been truly unaware that the am-
bush would occur; (2) They were aware of its even-
tuality, but for whatever reason chose not to inform
Adidas; or (3) They were aware of it, but did not
consider it to be an ambush. So, could a sponsor
depend on the legal system of the host nation to
protect them from ambush?government or the legal system to look
after you
Most countries have enacted broad legislation to
protect intellectual property rights (IPR), and spon-
sorship and copyright protection falls under this
broad aegis of laws. Host nations are particularly
sensitive to the concerns of international companies
which sponsor events therein. China’s poor track
record of enforcing IPR and the piracy that affects
most sectors of its economy was obviously an area of
concern for sponsors of the 2008 Beijing Olympiad,
and the Chinese government appeared responsive
to these apprehensions. In a press conference in
Beijing in 2007, the organizing committee’s market-
ing director, Chen Feng, emphasized: ‘‘Only those
who financially sponsor the games have the right to
market their products and maximize their commer-
cial interests’’ (Madden, 2007, p. 22). The govern-
ment had begun to employ inspectors to root
out infringements of sponsorship rights, and it was
reported by China’s State Administration of Industry
and Commerce that these inspectors uncovered
more than 1,500 cases of violations involving Beijing
Olympic slogans, logos, and trademarks.
However, as Preuss, Gemeinder, and Seguin
(2008) have pointed out, a number of challenges
exist regarding applying IPR law in a country like
China. Consider the fact that the Chinese tendency
to copy is based on Confucian tradition, which holds
that all should be shared. The people of China are
also socialized in communism, holding in particular
to the assumption that everything belongs to every-
one. There is a low understanding of sports sponsor-
ship rights in a competitive market economy, and
the economic education of managers and consumers
is limited. Finally, andmost importantly, jurisdiction
is poor. Chinese IPR laws are barely 20 years old, and
lawyers and judges do not have the knowledge and
experience to properly interpret and enforce them.
For Adidas to have taken legal action in the
Li Ning affair would have embroiled the company
in a political and legal minefield. The logical party to
sue would have been the Chinese Olympic Commit-
tee. This is essentially a government entity, and
taking action against it would have been tantamount
to suing a government under that government, under
its own legal system; obviously, this is hardly clear
when it comes to IPR in China.
5.4. Lesson 4: It’s not as if you weren’t
aware that you might be ambushed
Now that ambush marketing has become a common
theme in the sponsorship wars that surround most
international sporting and cultural events, it is not ownership of a personality or a country,’’ replied
Event sponsorship and ambush marketing: Lessons from the Beijing Olympics 287as though sponsors would be blissfully unaware that
wily rivals might waylay them. More than a year
before the Beijing Olympiad, Adidas’ Shanghai-
based director of the company’s 2008 Olympics
program, Erica Kerner, admitted to being very con-
cerned:
We believe ambush marketing will be at an all-
time high for a major sporting event. The threat
is from strong, marketing-driven brands devel-
oping ambush-marketing strategies, but also
from local brands that are trying to support
the games and do not realize that what they
are doing is breaking any rules.’’ (Madden,
2007, p. 22)
Indeed, she had even foreseen that a local upstart
might ambush Adidas. However, the firm might have
been lulled into a false sense of security by the
Olympic Committee’s and the Chinese government’s
attempts to quash ambush marketing; Ms. Kerner
went on to say that the Committee was ‘‘taking the
issue of ambush marketing very seriously. They have
been very proactive with us in a number of cases so
far’’ (Madden, 2007, p. 22). As it turned out, this
didn’t help Adidas when Li Ning ran across the
rafters.
5.5. Lesson 5: Don’t kid yourself that
consumers care
Ambush marketing wouldn’t work well–—or, indeed,
at all–—if target audiences regarded it as unethical,
and shunned marketers which engaged in the prac-
tice. Farrelly, Quester, and Greyser (2005) might
have been overly optimistic in claiming that ‘‘spon-
sors can rely on savvy and sophisticated audiences
increasingly [being] indignant toward the deception
ambushers seek to propagate’’ (p. 343). Respondent
sponsors that participated in their study stated that
‘‘consumers are far more astute and aware than in
the past; less and less will they be deceived by the
actions of ambushers . . . they will increasingly see
these attempts as a cheap shot, and increasingly
view brands that adopt such a strategy in a negative
light’’ (p. 343). This may simply be wishful thinking.
Numerous consumers feel that, as in love andwar,
all is fair in advertising. As long ago as 1992, it was
reported that, according to Advertising Age’s Fax-
Track reader poll on ambush marketing, a sizable
number of respondents believed that ambush mar-
keting during the Olympics was fair game; indeed,
45.7% said it was ‘‘extremely fair’’ and 22.9% said it
was ‘‘very fair.’’ ‘‘When you fail to compete, you
fail!’’ one participant noted. ‘‘It’s a free world.
Being an Olympic sponsor does not entitle one toanother (‘‘Ambush Marketing,’’ 1992). For these
reasons, it is doubtful that consumers cared much
about the Li Ning affair or the possible damage
inflicted upon Adidas. Loyal customers of major
international competitor brands such as Nike and
Puma might just have had a laugh at a competitor’s
expense. Chinese consumers loyal to Li Ning might
have viewed the incident as the triumph of a local
hero over an international giant. In any case, if
Adidas was waiting for a consumer cry of indignation
in its support, this was not forthcoming.
5.6. Lesson 6: Ambushees over-reacting
to an ambush can look like bullies
It is not difficult to criticize Adidas’ handling of the
Li Ning affair. One can easily say that the company
should have been more aware, should have antici-
pated ambush, and should have had measures in
place to limit the effects of the ambusher’s actions
on their own sponsorship strategy in particular, and
overall marketing efforts in general. However, a
lesson which emerges from the Li Ning affair high-
lights that dealing with ambush is not only about
anticipation; it is also about what to do after the
ambush has occurred.
Adidas’ reaction to the Li Ning ambush was mut-
ed. The company’s chief corporate communications
officer pointed out a day following the opening
ceremony that Li Ning actually wasn’t wearing
Li Ning clothes on Friday night, but that rather he
was clad in an Adidas torchbearer uniform. Adidas
responded as a good sport, noting that Li Ning
embodied the dream of many Chinese citizens:
growing up in poverty and raising his star to become
the nation’s first millionaire athlete. But, the dam-
age had been done. A typical Chinese consumer
interviewed by a journalist soon after said, ‘‘If I
had to guess, I would say the uniform was from
Li Ning’s company–—don’t they sponsor the Olympic
uniforms?’’ (Tschang, 2008).
While it would have been tempting for Adidas to
react strongly–—for example, by taking legal action
against the ambusher for the perpetration, and
the property for not acting diligently enough to stop
the ambush from happening; and by condemning the
ambush as unethical in the media–—the company did
not do so after the event. This was probably wise.
Firms which take strong action against individuals or
groups are often perceived as acting in an arrogant,
domineering fashion (Berthon, Pitt, McCarthy, &
Kates, 2007). Aggressive reactions against a smaller,
local competitor, andagainst a (supposedly) nonprof-
it goodwill organization such as the Olympic Commit-
tee might have given some personal satisfaction.
However, it could also have had the effect of making headlong into one. And if Adidas expected a con-
288 L. Pitt et al.Adidas look like a bully in the eyes of the world in
general, and to patriotic Chinese consumers in par-
ticular. Better perhaps to lick one’s wounds in pri-
vate, figure out how the ambush happened, and to
planhowtokeep similar events fromhappening in the
future. This brings us to our final lesson.
5.7. Lesson 7: Being a sponsor alone
won’t do the marketing job for you
Acting as the sponsor of a major event will not do a
brand much good if no one knows about the spon-
sorship. The prominent ‘‘protector’’ role ascribed
by sponsors to properties in the battle against am-
bushers needs to be complemented with what is now
a well-established rule, according to Farrelly,
Quester, and Greyser (2005). That is, sponsorships
have to be supplemented by meaningful marketing
communication efforts and resources if the invest-
ment in them is to be maximized. Furthermore,
sponsorship efforts need to be synchronized with
other marketing efforts. The sponsorship needs to
be known; even massive events like the Olympics
will not deliver much if the target market is unaware
of a firm’s sponsorship.
Firms facing sponsorship decisions have two
alternatives. On the one hand, they can choose
not to sponsor; in this case, the entire remaining
marketing budget can be used for marketing com-
munication and promotion, the success of which
will depend on creativity and strategy. On the
other hand, when a firm chooses to sponsor, there
are two possible outcomes: First, if all, or a major
proportion of, a marketing budget is devoted to
sponsorship, there will be few resources remaining
to be spent on marketing communication and pro-
motion, and the returns to the sponsorship will not
be maximized. Second, if there are adequate re-
sources remaining after a sponsorship allocation
has been made, the firm will be able to extract
good value from its sponsorship investment. Adidas
at least seems to have realized the latter eventu-
ality.
Adidas obviously made many mistakes as regards
the Li Ning affair, and it is easy to criticize these.
The firm was ambushed in a very unobvious way–—
which is, after all, what made it a great ambush;
even 24 hours before the event, the company was
not aware that Li Ning would be the final torch
bearer (Balfour, 2008). Perhaps Adidas did place
more trust in both the property (the Olympic
Committee) and the Chinese government, a naı¨ve
faith that obviously was not fulfilled. While the
company anticipated an ambush more than a
year before the games (Madden, 2007), it still ransumer backlash against the ambusher brand, it was
sorely misled. The Li Ning effect seems to have
enhanced consumers’ positive feelings toward the
Li Ning brand, rather than diminish them.
However, at two of our seven lessons, Adidas did
well. First, instead of pointing fingers and appropri-
ating blame, the company acted in a restrained and
dignified manner, and avoided looking like a bully.
Second, it also recognized that sponsorship–—as
massive and significant as it was in this particular
case–—was still only one weapon in its marketing
communication arsenal. While the synergies of both
successful marketing communication and sponsor-
ship would have been tremendous, the firm also
resisted the temptation to allow sponsorship to do
all the work. The rest of the marketing strategy
appeared to be sound, and it is unlikely that long-
term damage was done to the Adidas brand.
Adidas’ experience in the Li Ning affair permits
the identification of a few guidelines for those about
to be ambushed–—in marketing terms, at least. To
begin, don’t naı¨vely put yourself in a position to be
ambushed; remember, large sporting events provide
optimal venues and occasions for this to happen.
This does not mean that firms should abstain from
sponsorship; large global events can provide super-
lative opportunities for marketing communication.
However, walking into sponsorships and blithely
ignoring the lessons from the Li Ning affair would
be asking for trouble.
If you do decide to sponsor a major event, antici-
pate and behave as though an ambush will happen.
There is a huge value attached to major events that
those who didn’t bid high enough, or who simply
can’t afford to sponsor, will still want to attach to.
Finally, if you do sponsor and are ambushed, there
are three alternatives: (1) Sue ambushers and orga-
nizers if the payoff will be positive and the conse-
quences, in terms of costs and reputation, are
minimal; (2) Use the visibility the opportunity affords
to reinforce your core brand message; and, (3) Just
get out: do nothing and avoid making a bad situation
worse.
6. Concluding thoughts
Our research demonstrates the persistent effective-
ness of ambush marketing: Li Ning was the clear
brand winner of the 2008 Olympics in the footwear
category. The returns Li Ning received via its mini-
mal investment in sponsorship–—lobbying, perhaps?
–—were almost infinite in terms of brand attitude and
recommendation. And while Adidas undoubtedly en-
joyed some benefits from its sponsorship efforts, the
company invested heavily to achieve these and the
returns were still significantly lower than those ac-
crued by Li Ning. There is a curious historical irony
associated with this tale: Reebok was ambushed
during the Atlanta Games by Nike, and shortly before
the 2008 Olympics, Adidas bought Reebok. Clearly,
ambush marketing is one of the major hazards facing
high profile sponsorship.
Why ambushmarketing works–—from the perspec-
tive of consumer behavior, discussed earlier–—is also
highlighted by a number of lessons from the Li Ning
affair. First, consumers may have developed a sche-
ma for the ‘‘footwear brand’’ from Li Ning’s opening
of the Olympics, and when Adidas subsequently
appeared in all the Games’ billboards and in its
own television advertising, consumers still made
the connection–—because of the prominence and
impact of the opening–—between Li Ning and the
Games, rather than Adidas. Second, had Adidas
reacted too strongly to the Li Ning affair, either
by demanding his withdrawal from the opening
ceremony or by taking legal action, the company
could well have faced negative effects as a result.
Third, Li Ning’s dramatic and spectacular lighting of
1. Expect the unexpected — ambush attacks won’t
come in a form you anticipate;
2. Event organizers won’t always keep their word;
3. Don’t rely on governments to protect you — their
own interests will always trump yours;
4. Be constantly aware of the likelihood of ambush;
5. Remember that customers don’t care — they
won’t share your moral indignation regarding
an ambush event;
6. Don’t overreact to an ambush — it will only
compound the problem; and
7. Sponsorship is only the first stage of marketing in
an event setting — a firm needs to be proactive in
all marketing efforts and defensive in anticipat-
ing ambush.
Marketers need to understand the psychological
Event sponsorship and ambush marketing: Lessons from the Beijing Olympics 289
Glo
pa
nal
., i
th
po
k d
ps
wa
r. T
of
ts
0—
30
30the torch provides a classic example of salience.
Amidst the background noise of multiple sponsor-
ships, this highly poignant event stuck in people’s
memory such that when they were asked to recall
who the official sponsor of athletic footwear was for
the Beijing Games, more of our respondents thought
it was Li Ning than Adidas. Herein, we’ve highlighted
seven lessons regarding sponsorship that marketers
should learn:
Appendix. Study details
The data collection for this study was sponsored by
Washington. GMI has global consumer and specialty
the survey was conducted among GMI’s China Natio
attempts to match the Chinese adult, online (i.e
Internet) population. A sample of 4,000members of
invitation to participate in the survey. The res
Demographic information of the respondents brea
The objective was to get a good spread of age grou
total (in general) Chinese population. The survey
closing ceremony. Fieldwork was closed 3 days late
to allow for an almost simultaneous measurement
into both Cantonese and Mandarin, and responden
Total 18—29 3
Male 55% 23%
Female 45% 28%mechanisms that make ambushmarketing effective,
for they are the very devices that smart marketers
might employ against ambushers.
Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge the data collection spon-
sored by Global Market Insite (GMI), a global provid-
er of online consumer panels.
bal Market Insite (GMI), headquartered in Seattle,
nels in over 200 countries–—including China, where
Online Consumer Panel: A panel which essentially
ndividuals older than 18 who have access to the
is panel was randomly selected to receive an email
nse rate was 33.28%, or 1,331 usable surveys.
own as such:
that reflected both the online (in particular) and
s launched a few hours after the Olympic Games’
he relatively short fieldwork period was enforced
all respondents. The questionnaire was translated
were given their choice of language.
39 40—49 50—59 60+
% 23% 17% 7%
% 26% 14% 2%
290 L. Pitt et al.
Respondents were required to disclose basic demogr
rti
ot
Pe
or
of
poi
on
gor
sor
nd
d m
tion
tti
We
hin
a
r No
h b
equ
Li NReferences
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