Ethical Ethics Of Ambush Marketing

As Shani and Sandler have put across, ‘Ambush Marketing’ is viewed, as both ‘illegal’ and ‘immoral’. The earlier part of the paper discussed the legal issues, in this part of the paper the focus on the existing ethical controversies. The law regulates and the enacting of legislation solves the legal controversies. Thus the focus of this part of the paper is on the remedy for ethical controversy.

The first question that arises is ‘whether ambush marketing as a business practise ethical?’ The view over this issue is divided, a few feel that there is nothing unethical about ‘Ambush Marketing’ as it is not illegal, it is a marketing strategy, wherein ambushing is the weapon. However, there is a view that, the ethics of marketing are not followed and thus unethical. Even before taking a call over it, the need is to know, what constitutes ethical marketing practise?

‘Moral principles and values that govern the actions and decisions of an individual or group. A particular action may be within the law and still not be ethical’ . There may be comprehensive codes of ethics, company cultures, and behaviours which actually influence the manner in which a company behaves. The most important ethics in the world of advertising is not to deceive the customer of the content and the essence of the product. The two theories of Dickson , principle of utility and theory of situational ethics provide the reasoning behind ethics. In the former principle, the utilitarianism is emphasized wherein the good of all is to be looked into. In the latter principle, he emphasizes the questioning of the self, that if everyone did the same act, would it be right? And does the existing social fabric provide for it? And what are the effects on the one on the...

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... those rights. Due to the dearth in law, the claim that ‘Ambush Marketing’ is not illegal can be easily utilized at the expense of an official sponsor. Though, it may seem to not be a problem, as the official sponsors would also not sponsor but utilize the event to the fullest advantage. The consequence of it, is nothing but organizers loosing funds and failure or non-occurrence of an event, as sponsorship forms one of the important funding for an event. Which is nothing but, getting to square one, where it has to be started all over again. Practically, in the era of globalization, this might seem impossible but broadcasters monopoly is another possibility. Thus, recognition through law is the need of the hour to ensure limited exploitation of sporting events, the telecast of which has become a major revenue contributor to several wings of entertainment industry .