With the approach of the Milano–Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the issue of ambush marketing becomes particularly significant, as it brings into focus the interaction between law, communication and market dynamics in a context of exceptionally high visibility. Ambush marketing generally refers to situations in which a brand attempts to create a perceived association with the event without being an official sponsor, exploiting the event’s notoriety in order to gain economic or reputational visibility. Such practices may take many forms, ranging from the use of evocative symbols, names or slogans to advertising campaigns placed in the vicinity of competition venues, and extending to the strategic use of hashtags on social media or territorial storytelling that indirectly recalls the Games. In all these cases, the common feature lies in the creation of a perceived association in the minds of the public that does not correspond to any real or authorised link with the event. From an intellectual property perspective, ambush marketing raises complex and multi-layered issues. First of all, the so-called Olympic Properties – including trademarks, emblems, slogans, event names and official symbols – enjoy exclusive protection, and their use is reserved to subjects authorised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Organising Committee, as provided for by the special Italian legislation introduced by Decree-Law No. 16 of 11 March 2020, converted with amendments by Law No. 31 of 8 May 2020. This legislation defines “parasitic activities” as any form of advertising or promotional activity, whether direct or indirect, capable of deriving an economic advantage from the event without the consent of the rights holders, and provides for administrative sanctions and specific enforcement measures, including the seizure of promotional materials during the Games. Secondly, there is the profile of copyright and the protection of creative materials related to the event, such as logos, designs and official materials, whose protection prevents unauthorized appropriation even in the absence of direct trademark infringement. Added to this is the right of image of athletes and sporting competitions, which is regulated at international level by Rule 40 of the Olympic Charter, limiting the commercial use of Olympic-related names and images by non-sponsor entities, and thereby safeguarding the commercial value and reputation of the protagonists of the event. Alongside these forms of direct protection, ambush marketing conduct may also be pursued under unfair competition law, pursuant to Article 2598 of the Italian Civil Code, where an advertising campaign exploits the notoriety of the event to obtain economic advantages without creating independent value. The special Italian legislation and the ordinary instruments of intellectual property protection thus create a multi-level legal framework, within which even indirect or merely evocative uses of protected signs may give rise to legal liability, even in the absence of formal trademark infringements. The main interpretative challenge concerns the distinction between lawful communication and parasitic activity, which must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into account public perception, the territorial and temporal context, and the concrete effects of the campaign. For companies, the risks are not limited to administrative sanctions or civil litigation but also include reputational damage and the ability to operate in competitive markets without incurring legal challenges, while interpretative uncertainty makes preventive legal assessment and careful campaign management essential. From an academic perspective, ambush marketing should not be considered solely in a repressive sense; rather, it represents a field for reflection on the relationship between the protection of exclusive rights, freedom of economic initiative and principles of fair competition, on the boundaries between intellectual property protection and corporate creativity, and on the way in which legal principles interact with complex and high-visibility communication phenomena. In this sense, ambush marketing is not merely an enforcement issue, but an opportunity to analyze how the law balances public and private interests, the protection of rights and competitive pluralism, confirming the importance of careful and context-sensitive interpretation on a case-by-case basis.
2026 - Morri Rossetti
