Hugo Boss Goes Ambush on the British Open...
Monday, July 27, 2009 at 05:40PM 
Are you looking for ways to drive brand awareness at premier sporting events without paying large sums for partnership fees? Are you looking for creative ways to leverage sponsorships in the golf space?
During live television coverage of the '09 British Open, Hugo Boss pulled off one of the greatest ambush marketing tactics seen to date at a premier sporting event. The high-end menswear apparel company creatively parked a hi-tech sailboat in the waters off Turnberry, Scotland that appeared in the tournament's worldwide television coverage.
The sailboat's extensive branding was easily picked up on camera, providing extensive media value for the Hugo Boss brand as their target demographic watched from around the globe. While some companies paid large sums of dollars to advertise through ABC's coverage of the tournament, Hugo Boss found a sneaky way to effectively incorporate its brand into the coverage.
Source: Industry.BNet.com
A special thanks to Jeff Snyder of the Kansas City Chiefs for his insights and contributions to this column.
Reader Comments (1)
It's a good spot. Hugo Boss have been doing this well all year. If you look at the Monaco F1 Grand Prix footage, you will also see the boat.
It's not just a billboard though. Hugo Boss have been sponsoring offshore sailing for a long time and get incredible ROI from it. The skipper, Alex Thomson, is one of the 'rock stars' of the sailing world and gets up to all kinds of cool activation tricks like http://www.yachtsponsorship.com/2009/05/hugo-boss-give-a-lesson-in-sponsorship-activation/
Many sponsors of sailing are realising that the boat doesn't just have to be used for racing. The square footage of some of these sails is huge. Other series that are taking advantag of the boats while not in racing include the iShares Cup for extreme 40 catamarans.