Ambush Marketing: What Is 'Major'? An Ambush on the Major Events Management Act 2007

Abstract

This research paper examines New Zealand’s answer on the more and more rising problem of ambush marketing attacks on major events – the Major Events Management Act. The main purpose of the paper is to determine which events have major event quality in the sense of the Act. Three years after the enacting of the Act, five events were declared to be major so far. By examining the facts of these events, this paper discloses where the thresholds for the scale and the type of the event are in practice. This paper comes to the conclusion that the Government lowered these thresholds by some controversial decisions leading to an increased scope of application of the MEMA. Major event status has to be granted more likely to many more smaller events. Furthermore, although originally intended otherwise, annual and regular events as well as non-sporting events might get the protection of the MEMA in the future. This is due to New Zealand’s approach to enact generic instead of event-specific legislation in the end.