MUMBAI: The UEFA Champions League final on Saturday evening (June 1) was brought to a halt when a streaker invaded the pitch. Now while some would argue that streaking is an “old tradition” in team sports, what made this particular case unique was that it had a clear commercial impetus behind it – ambush marketing.
When Kinsey Wolanski somehow made it past security and broke onto the pitch at Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid in the first half of the game between Liverpool FC and Tottenham Hotspurs, the Instagram model was wearing not much aside from a thong swimsuit that read ‘Vitaly Uncensored’.
Wolanski is the girlfriend and accomplice of infamous Russian YouTuber Vitaly Zdorovetskiy. And it was his adult website Vitaly Uncensored that she was advertising.
According to Apex MG Analytics, Wolanski’s streaking stunt delivered an equivalent of $3.97 million in advertising time for Vitaly Uncensored.
As for Wolanski personally, her Instagram follower count grew by all of 2 million as a result. That she has been slapped with a lifetime ban from European football matches as a consequence would no doubt have been calculated as well worth the trade-off for Wolanski and Zdorovetskiy.
What had not been factored in and will hit Wolanski hard though is that her Instagram account has been shut down.
