Stephen Ridgway in The Times on 'ambush' marketing in major sporting events

8 July 2010

Stephen Ridgway is quoted in The Times in a feature on how sporting bodies and host countries for major sporting events are responding to 'ambush' marketing events, such as Dutch beer company Bavaria's stunt at the World Cup's Holland-Denmark game. 

The piece, written by In the City columnist Edward Fennell, describes how this threatens the event's relationships with its official sponsors and how authorities are reacting with increasing severity.  The London Olympics in 2012 will be a further testing ground for these developments.

Stephen explains that a key part in awarding any major sporting event today is that the host country undertakes to enact legislation to prohibit advertising and marketing associated with the event by anyone other than the official sponsors.  "We have a kind of arms race going on between countries to get more draconian legislation on to the statute books to protect official sponsors," he says.  "The South Africans have probably gone further than anyone by introducing both criminal and civil penalties.  They also set up, at the instigation of FIFA, special courts to deal with these cases."