Much Ado about Guerilla Marketing: Bad Boys Bail Bonds vs freedom of speech
Sometime’s hockey can be ridiculous. Without as much mainstream attention as other major sports, coverage can occasionally veer off into the nonsensical. That was the case last week when San Jose Mercury News reporter Bruce Newman published an item titled Tempest in a t-shirt . It was reported that the San Jose Sharks/HP Pavilion management would ban the Bad Boys Bail Bonds contigent that sits directly behind player benches from wearing bright, neon-colored advertising apparel at games. After they declined to renew a $70k advertising package for player benches, Bad Boy co-owner Jeffrey Stanley believed a new “enhanced ticket policy” was created to prohibit ticket holders from wearing clothing items that promoted other entities. “They’re targeting just us” he told the Mercury News.The Sharks gained a new advertising sponsor for the player benches this year in Porsche Automotive. Sharks Sports and Entertainment VP Malcolm Bordelon said that the team did not want competing messages sent to its sponsors in the form of garrish t-shirt advertisments, face paint and wigs. “That type of ambush marketing is what we’re trying to protect them from,” Bordelon told the Mercury News. The tongue in cheek freedom of speech angle Bad Boys Bail Bonds took with the Mercury News was amped up with Yahoo Puck Daddy editor Greg Wyshynski a few days days later. In addition to furnishing the letter sent by the Sharks regarding the new policy, Stanley also offered that he had sought consitutional law counsel. “My constitutional attorney says we have a legal right to wear the shirts at the game,” he told Yahoo.
