Iga Świątek – Poland’s most accomplished tennis player and athlete – impresses not only with her excellent tennis skills, but also with her personality, professionalism and transparency in promoting her values. From a marketing perspective, her image is worth millions.

Immediately after her victory at Wimbledon, Polskie Zakłady Zbożowe Lubella GMW Sp. z o.o. Sp.k. – a Polish pasta manufacturer and subsidiary of Maspex Group – announced that to celebrate this victory, it would launch a limited edition of pasta in the shape of tennis rackets, inspired by Iga Świątek’s comment about her favourite dish, i.e. pasta with strawberries. The campaign was carried out as a real-time marketing campaign, involving fans in coming up with a name for the product, with „Rakiettoni” winning. Lubella’s Instagram post about voting for a name for pasta: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMA_ieVR_Eh/.

The marketing campaign should certainly be considered very successful. The company immediately responded to Iga Świątek’s words at Wimbledon that her favourite dish is pasta with strawberries. As someone who admires Iga and has enormous respect for her, I wonder whether Iga Świątek has given her consent to Lubella’s actions. And if not, did Lubella infringe the law with its likeable campaign? So far, I have not seen anyone ask these questions.

The campaign certainly benefits from the image of Iga Świątek and her sporting achievements, in particular her victory at Wimbledon. In terms of personal rights, Polish law still does not keep pace with reality and does not directly protect the property aspect of personal rights (the so-called right of publicity), apart from partial regulation concerning image contained in copyright law (i.e. likeness) and this has not been used by Lubella. The protection of property interests is ensured by the Act on Combating Unfair Competition, also explicitly in the context of advertising, but it applies, as a rule, to entrepreneurs. A name may be a trademark, and such word marks (EUTM 018726582) and device marks (EUTM 019101690) have been registered with EUIPO on behalf of Iga Świątek for a number of goods and services, including, i.a., in class 30 for pasta dishes and in class 35 for online retail services related to the following products: pasta dishes.

Lubella’s campaign resembles ambush marketing, where companies that aren’t sponsoring a sporting event only refer to it indirectly, but benefit from the event’s popularity in their own unrelated activities. However, in most cases, such actions are considered an infringement of the Act on Combating Unfair Competition.

Without conducting a detailed analysis of this matter and without knowing whether Iga Świątek has given her consent to the campaign, I share the opinion that in similar cases, even if the advertising campaign may be effective and the entrepreneur may believe that it does not infringe anyone’s rights, the decision to carry it out should be made very carefully and with great respect for the athlete, who is building their sporting career and associated marketing image with great dedication and caution. Personally, I did not like the campaign for these reasons.