Ambush marketing is dead; long live ambush marketing: A redefinition and typology of an increasingly prevalent phenomenon

Nicholas Burton and Simon Chadwick

Ambush marketing is more than 30 years old, and its prevalence continues to grow. Recent cases indicate that brands perpetrating ambushes are becoming more creative, but the literature has failed to keep pace, offering scant analysis of the different forms ambushing can take, and the implications it can have and little investigation or consideration from the ambusher's perspective.
Burton and Chadwick

MANAGEMENT SLANT

  • Ambush marketing is evolutionary and dynamic; it encompasses a diverse array of tactics, strategy, and marketing media.
  • Existing definitions of ambushing are inadequate in reflecting the complexity of ambush-marketing types.
  • Different forms of ambushing present specific and unique management implications for commercial rights holders, official event sponsors, and ambush marketers alike.
  • Rights-holder-based counterambush...

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