With the brand new outdoor Target Field located in downtown Minneapolis, the buzz is palpable, and there is certainly more foot and other forms of traffic, especially on the end of town closest to where the Minnesota Twins now play their home games. Given that increased traffic I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that some businesses will try to capitalize on that increased traffic and compete for the eyeballs of passersby in the vicinity of Twins Territory.
Exhibit A, shown above, is a very large billboard positioned on the roof of First Avenue (known as "Your Downtown Danceteria Since 1970"). It won the attention of my eyeballs.
When this billboard caught my eye, positioned squarely on the path to one of the parking ramps connected by skyway to Target Field, it struck me as, well, not the most "well-articulated ambush marketing campaign," to borrow Susan Perera’s phrase in her recent posts on Ambush Marketing.
It seems to me that it lacks being "well-articulated" because it actually uses the Twins brand name and trademark in the advertisement, by calling out: "Hey Twins Fans! Car Shop With Confidence" positioned above the Cars.com logo and on the background of what appears to simulate a baseball. Can you say, sponsorship?
My assumption, of course, is that if Cars.com actually were paying for the right to be a Twins sponsor, they’d say so, and neither the billboard nor their website give any such indication.
So, what do you think?
Nominative Fair Use of the Twins trademark? Ambush Marketing? Or is this simply another form of questionable brand bait?