Explaining the under-utlisation of event specific ambush marketing legislation

Geoff Dickson , Sean Phelps

AUT University

Geoff Dickson: geoff.dickson@aut.ac.nz

One of the conditions for hosting mega-events, such as the Olympics, World Cup Football and the Rugby World Cup, is that the host country develop and implement event-specific legislation to support efforts to reduce the frequency and impact of ambush marketing (in the case of New Zealand the Major Events Management Act). However, the execution and application of such legislation has been infrequent and McKelvey and Grady (2008) asked researchers ‘to explore why, in the presence of special event legislation with substantial remedial provisions, event organizers have largely been hesitant to use the courts to seek a remedy when instances of ambush marketing occur at their events. The research is collecting data using semi-structured interviews with New Zealand intellectual property lawyers and event managers, as well as marketing, advertising and sport marketing executives (and incorporating a historical perspective of previous mega-events).

Keywords:

ambush marketing; policy; major events

August 2011 - December 2012

Case study

Auckland

Sport

Events

Management, Policy

2580

June 18, 2012