Ambush Marketing: The Art of Diverting Attention

Ambush marketing is a strategy used by companies to promote their brands at events without paying any sponsorship fees. An example: “Dutch buyers of Heineken beer were given green hats to wear to the recent Euro 2008 football tournament. Anyone who tried to enter a stadium wearing one, however, as many fans did in 2004, was asked to remove it.

The hats were an “ambush marketing” campaign… Heineken’s rival, Carlsberg, was an official sponsor of Euro 2008, paying $21m for the privilege. A few TV close-ups of fans wearing Heineken hats would have cost very little by comparison”

China, the host of the 2008 Olympics, is aware of these tactics and has taken precautions to control ‘all prominent advertising sites in the Chinese capital’ in order to prevent other companies from putting up or buying ads to take advantage of the massive increase in human traffic. They don’t want their official sponsors to be upstaged by other competitors.

Ambush marketing is opportunistic. It’s goal is to take advantage of situations which allow brands/products to get extra exposure at minimal cost. Sometimes that involves going right into the lions den and clashing head on with a competitor who dominates the main message dissemination channels. Sometimes it requires stealth and more guerrilla-like tactics.

What marketers and anyone who wants to promote themselves can learn is the strategy of seeking out people-saturated public spaces (online or offline) and seek to populate that area with your message. Buskers, beggars and poster street teams are all familiar with how to promote their agenda or needs in areas where people frequently pass through.

Contextual relevance is also important. Selling is more natural and persuasive when it flows alongside the momentum generated by the immediate environment and current news/trends.

Just the other day, I went to a rock concert and was waiting in the queue when I noticed a guy from a local radio station standing at the side of the road. As people passed by, he gave them each a high-five while saying out the name of his station.

It was innocuous enough, everyone took it in good taste. After the concert finished, I left the venue with my friends. While walking on the path out, we were stopped by three guys who handed us each a flyer for their band. On it was their band logo as well as their myspace and facebook URLs, along with a link to a free download of some tracks from their latest album.

These people anticipated an opportunity: a rock concert would bring out hordes of music fans, many of which are targeted high-value prospects. The right pitch at the right time/place.

Can Ambush Marketing Actually Work Online?

Image Credit: one nation under CCTV

Let’s talk a little about ambush marketing online. Is it even possible?  Maybe. Take the example of sneaky link insertions. Some people carefully monitor the upcoming stories with the most votes on digg.com or other popular social news sites and insert comments with links to their website. When the story hits the frontpage or gradually accumulates visibility, the well placed links can each easily net you upwards of 1,000+ visitors.

This is a tactic that piggybacks on an existing occurrence. To do this effectively, you should constantly push news/events related to your target market and specific keyword-relevant searches on major online communities to a central location, like an RSS reader or dashboard. Monitor this repository of occurrences constantly. Or get someone to keep an eye on it.

After which you need to be prepared to rapidly develop ways to leech the attention from the traffic that’s focused on a specific webpage or occurrence. Sometimes that involves creating specific landing pages that diverge from your website’s original theme/focus.

For instance, to take advantage of the buzz around the iPhone 3G, a website about fitness can create a stand-alone page about iPhone tips/hacks and push it out to not only the popular blogs but every single hobbyist/small-time blogger who has ever expressed an interest in it.

There’s a disconnect between your actual site theme and your specific article/landing page but you are relying on the fact that some of the traffic going over to the specific page will click over to your homepage and end up viewing it. A large amount of non-relevant traffic will eventually allow you to hit a smaller amount of prospects actually interested in your site’s actual focus.

Of course, this isn’t ambush marketing per se, but rather something that builds on theopportunistic mindset which underlies it. The tactical principle is simple: stay in the loop and watch for openings to divert attention towards your brand. A rule of thumb: where people gather online in large numbers, you should be there with a relevant message

source:http://www.doshdosh.com/ambush-marketing-the-art-of-diverting-attention/

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Negative Marketing

What is negative marketing?
Negative marketing involves making other companies who are your competition look bad. This is a ploy used in order to make your product look better than theirs in the eyes of the consumer. While some people may find this to be unfair or unethical it is a marketing strategy used all the time. Why? Because it gets attention and it really seems to work.
In the world of advertising, this type of marketing is aggressive. Yet they term it as comparative marketing instead of negative marketing. That way they aren’t labeled as trying to sabotage the business of someone else. In order for negative marketing to work though you must has a company name that consumers have grown to trust. If you don’t appear to be credible they aren’t going to listen to what you have to say.

Effects of negative marketing

for the one who initiates negative marketing

Research has shown that the information offered with negative marketing tends to remain with the consumer for a very long time. They won’t easily forget the message they have received from you. They really get the consumer to explore their emotions about the information they have been given. It is this type of response that gets results for the advertiser and increases sales.
If the advertiser goes about it the right way, negative marketing can prove to be extremely powerful. They will capture the attention of the reader and they will be able to get an edge over the competition. With hard economic times right now many businesses consider to use those methods of advertising that are going to generate sales for them.

for the competitors
You can be sure the company on the flip side of the advertisement isn’t going to be very happy though. They have worked hard to get their product recognized in a positive way. They aren’t going to like having their product name associated with negative marketing methods. It can cost them a great deal of money in the long run.
The effects that negative advertising can have on those companies is unbelievable. Millions of people use the internet each day to search for various products. When it is the negative aspects of a given product that find their way to the top of the search engine rankings - f.e. caused through negative SEO (negative searchengine marketing) initiated by their competitor (we will inform later about negative SEO en detail) - you can imagine the negative impact on their sales. Consumers will shy away from such products for a very long time.

source:http://negativemarketing.com/

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