Online casino FanDuel's 'Dual Fan' campaign includes a series of scarves inspired by the fact that many Canadians cheer for two teams during the World Cup.Supplied
If you’ve hit a Tim Hortons lately, you’ve probably noticed that the company has come to play for this month’s FIFA World Cup.
A few weeks ago, the coffee giant rolled out a limited-time offering called Tastes of the Globe: four different Timbits inspired by the soccer greats Brazil (lime cheesecake), France (crème brûlée), and Italy (cappuccino), as well as Canada (a birthday-cake-and-popping-candy confection called fireworks); you can wash them all down with a caramel churro Iced Capp that is supposed to bring Mexico to mind.
A World Cup-themed marketing campaign for Tim Hortons includes limited-edition Timbits.Hand-out/Supplied
“It’s ‘game on’ at Tims,” says the TV spot for the campaign, which features animated Timbits kicking around a soccer ball and concludes with a shot of the five treats identified by their national flags.
The campaign will also include a TV spot with Canadian national team player Jonathan David in a new Timbits Soccer jersey designed by Adidas. But while Adidas is an official sponsor of the World Cup, Tim Hortons is not; any connection you might make between the company and the global soccer tournament about to touch down in Vancouver and Toronto, as well as in the U.S. and Mexico, is entirely up to you.
The Tims campaign is part of the long – sometimes admired and sometimes condemned – tradition in global sports of ambush marketing, in which companies associate themselves with an event without going to the trouble – and, more to the point, the massive expense – of becoming official sponsors.
Canadian national team player Jonathan David, wearing a jersey from World Cup sponsor Adidas, appears in the Tim Hortons commercial.Hand-out/Supplied
“There’s a camp that would say it’s kind of immoral that companies are deflecting attention away from the actual sponsors that are paying notable money for sponsorship activities,” said Timothy Dewhirst, a marketing professor at the University of Guelph’s Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics.
“But there’s another camp that would just say it’s imaginative – you know: Good on Tim Hortons to craft a message where they build an association with the event without having to pay that high price tag.”
In June, 2024, FIFA issued a 27-page Intellectual Property Guideline for this year’s tournament that included a section on “How to celebrate without creating an unauthorized association.”
It also works closely with the local governments where it stages tournaments to stamp out the practice. In advance of the 2010 World Cup, South Africa passed a ban on ambush marketing to protect the rights of sponsors such as Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch.
When Dutch brewer Bavaria sent about 40 women into the stands at a match in Johannesburg dressed in identical orange minidresses, authorities charged two of the ringleaders under the new law, though the proceedings were later dropped amid a public backlash.
In March, with an eye to the World Cup, Mexico passed a law banning ambush marketing that includes fines of more than US$1-million. In Canada, enforcement during this year’s World Cup is falling primarily to bylaw officers in Toronto and Vancouver.
But smart brands, aided by savvy intellectual-property lawyers, continue to push the boundaries.
On Thursday, the sportsbook and online casino FanDuel kicked off a promotion pegged to what it calls, in a press release, “this summer’s international football tournament.” The campaign, cannily dubbed “Dual Fan,” is based on the recognition that many Canadian fans have a second team for which they cheer during a World Cup.
FanDuel's scarves intentionally don't include any FIFA or World Cup logos.Supplied
So, the company has produced a collection of supporter scarves that it will be giving out on the streets of Toronto: On one side of the scarves, a stylized Canadian flag; on the other, the flag of one of the other 47 countries playing in the tournament.
On no side: The FIFA or World Cup logos.
Asked about the perception of ambush marketing, FanDuel responded with an e-mailed statement that read, in part: “FanDuel regularly creates campaigns rooted in sports culture and fan passion, and Dual Fan is an extension of that – created to rally our customers around a shared sense of pride and participate in the broader cultural conversation surrounding the game."
The Globe and Mail also asked Tim Hortons about the perception that its Timbit promotion is World Cup ambush marketing; the company declined to comment and instead sent along a press release that had announced the campaign.
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But some brands are only too happy to acknowledge that they are piggybacking on the event and to offer a rationale.
A couple of weeks ago, the Toronto-based wellness and whole foods retailer Healthy Planet played host to Jonathan Osorio, the captain of Toronto FC and a member of the Canadian men’s national team, at its Etobicoke location. Though he was there as a brand ambassador for Biosteel hydration rather than Healthy Planet, he filmed some social-media spots to help promote the store’s Game Day GOAT contest, which invites customers to guess the winners of each of 104 matches in what it called the “global soccer tournament.”
Toronto FC captain Jonathan Osorio, who will play for Canada in the World Cup, appears in ads for wellness and whole foods retailer Healthy Planet.Supplied
“We’ve always focused on community,” said Ashish Khera, chief marketing officer of Healthy Planet, who noted that the retailer sponsors youth sports in a number of the Southern Ontario markets where its stores are located.
He said the company has considered big-ticket partnerships over the years. “But what we see is, it basically gives a lot of money to the big guys and takes money away from community.”
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Mr. Khera says that if people accuse the company of practising ambush marketing, “I think they won’t be wrong, to be honest.” Most of the brands in the store, he says, are much newer than those found in the large grocery chains, and often the creation of independent Canadian entrepreneurs looking for a toehold.
“It’s so hard for them to compete against a traditional beauty-care brand or a traditional food brand, or food giant,” said Mr. Khera. “So, we look at ourselves as the gateway for these brands.”
“We’re fighting against the conventional industry.”
As for the World-Cup-campaign-that’s-not-a-World-Cup campaign? “People love talking about who’s going to win, right?” he said.
“We’re trying to get in that conversation, because that commitment towards the sport is what we want to align ourselves with. Not so much about saying we are the official sponsors.”