ANN ARBOR—When a company ambushes a sporting event with a memorable and possibly outrageous act for attention, the actual sponsors of the event should lay low?a counter-attack could backfire, new research shows.

With all the direct, indirect and incidental ambushing techniques that have companies literally cashing in on sporting events without paying a dime, what is a sponsoring company to do? University of Michigan School of Kinesiology Sport Marketing Professor Bettina Cornwell and her colleagues, Professor Michael Humphreys, University of Queensland, and Anna McAlister, PhD University of Wisconsin?Madison, decided to take a closer look at ambushing and counter-ambushing strategies and their effects on memory.

In a two-part study published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Cornwell and her colleagues first examined ambushing scenarios to determine the likelihood that adults might mistakenly associate a non-sponsoring competitor with an event when in fact a “true sponsor” was known to have paid sponsorship rights. The researchers used real brands and fictitious events to create mock press releases for a controlled experimental context. The mock news article provided an example in which adult participants read about popular surf wear brand, Billabong, winning rights to sponsor the “Pacific Surfing Contest.” These participants later read a second press release. Some read press releases in which equally popular surf wear brand, Quiksilver, was named alongside the event.

In the experiment, some participants read that Quiksilver was giving its customers a chance to win tickets to the Pacific Surfing Contest, even though Quiksilver had failed to win rights to sponsor the contest (note that here participants are likely to attend to the “not sponsor” position of Quiksilver). Others read that Quiksilver was giving its customers a chance to win tickets, but for these participants there was no reminder that Quiksilver was not the event sponsor (note that here participants might forget the “not sponsor” status of the Quiksilver brand). An alternative to these ambushing scenarios was also presented, wherein some participants read about the release of a new surfing book by Quiksilver. This non-ambushing announcement was included to allow for comparisons across conditions.

In this first study, the researchers found evidence that ambushing behavior benefits the competitor and harms the true paying sponsor. When asked to name the sponsor of the Pacific Surfing Contest, participants who read the non-ambushing announcement about Quiksilver’s new surf book were not likely to think that Quiksilver was the sponsor of the Pacific Surfing Contest. Those that had read either type of announcement about Quiksilver giving tickets to the event showed a significant tendency to think that Quiksilver was the event sponsor (and thus, any attribution of event sponsorship to Billabong was damaged). This “damage” was more likely when participants were not reminded of the “not sponsor” status of Quiksilver. These results were found using a number of sponsor-event pairings using a variety of other popular brands and fictitious events (e.g., Panasonic and Sony were examined in relation to the “Moonlight Music Festival”).

In the second study, the research team investigated the usefulness of strategies that might be put in place by a true event sponsor to counteract any damage that occurs as a result of ambushing by a competitor. Can a paying sponsor be successful in reminding consumers that the competing brand is not the true sponsor of an event? Would the event organizers do well to combat the ambushing attempts or would it be better to stay quiet? The researchers again used mock press releases to announce the true sponsor of each event, to deliver ambush information, and also to present counter-ambush claims from the event organizers. These counter-ambush announcements were worded to describe event organizers’ upset over the behavior of the competitor brand, and intentions to impose fines or otherwise enforce anti-ambush regulations to sanction against the competitor’s behavior.

Again, the researchers found evidence that ambushing can pose a serious threat to consumers’ memory for learned sponsorship information. Any message that linked the competitor to the event increased the number of times that participants named the competitor when asked which brand had sponsored the event. An order effect was also found, since this study was run across two days. The results showed that confusion was more likely to occur when mention of the competitor was recent (i.e., had occurred on day two) than when it was older (i.e., had occurred on day one).

Cornwell said the results of this study should be a warning that counter-ambushing communications may have the unintended effect of creating a link between the ambusher and the event. Often times if preventing an ambushing events fails, sponsoring companies or their representatives are known to employ a “name and shame” strategy where the ambusher is named and shamed in the media. She explained, “If spectators wearing rival competitor T-shirts are ousted from an event and this ouster is covered in the news, it typically would include information linking the event and the ambusher. Coverage of this type can sometimes cement the relationship between the competitor and event. If the media continue to cover the story, variations of it may come out over several days resulting in repeated, spaced exposures for the ambusher.”

Companies often turn to the event owners (or the property) to protect the event from ambushers? however, this is a very difficult and expensive method. Cornwell says there are a mix of strategies and counter-strategies marketers use to thwart and deal with ambushing events, but she warns the more attention you draw to the ambusher the more people will remember it. She added, “What our research suggests is if you are ambushed at an event, perhaps the best way to deal with it is to be as quiet as possible about the strategies you employ to deal with the ambusher. Marketers really need to think about the value and the risk of counter-ambushing and a consumer’s long-term memory effects in order to avoid cementing the relationship of the ambusher to the event.”

One of the more well-known examples is the case of global telecommunications company Vodafone, which paid a few people to streak at the Bledisloe Cup in Sydney, Australia with Vodafone symbols painted on their naked bodies. While some ambushing attempts can be creative and fun and are often planned to catch attention, these types of activities can also jeopardize the investments (millions of dollars) of paying sponsors.

Typically, many companies turn to the event (or property) to handle enforcing rules and policies that are put in place to circumvent ambushing. For example, organizers of the Olympics plan years in advance to ensure that their paying sponsors will be protected. In 2008, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad required businesses to abide by laws and regulations of fair and honest advertising principles and not to engage in ambushing behaviors.

The University of Michigan School of Kinesiology continues to be a leader in the areas of prevention and rehabilitation, the business of sport, understanding lifelong health and mobility, and achieving health across the lifespan through physical activity. The School of Kinesiology is home to the Athletic Training, Movement Science, Physical Education, and Sport Management academic programs?bringing together leaders in physiology, biomechanics, public health, urban planning, economics, marketing, public policy, and education and behavioral science since 1894. For more information, visit www.kines.umich.edu