Reveal the Uncovered Undercover Marketing
A marketing company might pay an actor or socially adept person to use a certain product visibly and convincingly in locations where target consumers congregate. The actor will often be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even realizing that they are being marketed to. An undercover campaign aims to generate buzz, is economical, and once sufficient buzz has been generated, is almost free, as consumers "market" the product to others, through a network of referrals which grows and grows. Marketers find it very hard to predict buzz let alone generate it on demand. An ideal consumer from the example above will not only begin using that product themselves, but will also tell their friends about it, inciting a planned viral marketing campaign that looks spontaneous. Overall, the person doing the marketing looks and sound like a peer of their target audience without any ulterior motive for endorsing the product—employees of the company cannot do undercover marketing, nor can celebrities.
One common approach is to engage the services of a well-respected public personality, such as a performer. The performer may offer to share the product with others in his social or business circles, and may even offer a testimonial of the benefits derived from the use of the product. This approach often works on the rapport that already exists between the performer and interested consumers.
Undercover marketing targets potential customers by concealing the commercial nature of an apparently social transaction. In a typical case an individual approaches a marketing target apparently to provide some information or advice about a product in a way that makes it seem like they are a fellow consumer. In another kind of case, a friend displays a product to you, and encourages its purchase, but fails to disclose their association with the marketing firm. We focus on this second type of case and argue that the constitutive dispositions of friendship that provide for the development and maintenance of intimacy also render friends especially vulnerable to undercover marketing techniques and so to the exploitation of friendship for commercial ends. We show how this is corrupting both of the friendship and the commercial agent.
A famous stealth marketing technique, from the 50?s, involved movie theatres. A single frame saying “Eat Popcorn” was inserted / spliced into film reels and, you guessed it, popcorn sales went shooting up without anyone having any conscious-level sense of where the urge to eat popcorn came from.
Apple is a great example of modern companies that use stealth marketing. How many movies and TV shows do you see these days with people using Apple products? This is also called product placement. For example, if you watch the Jimmy Fallon show, not only does he often use his Mac Book Pro on his desk, but his IPhone as well to check various things throughout the show. Practically every person on film or television connected to an MP3 player is using an IPod. If you watch sports, most players and fighters before competition get “in the zone” through the music that they have on their IPod. Apple products have become so popular, largely in part to their implementation of stealth marketing through major media outlets in conjunction with effectively branding their products while attaching aspects of popular culture to them.
Although buzz marketing is not new, Internet technology has changed the way it's being used. Buzz campaigns are now being initiated in chat rooms, where marketing representatives assume an identity appropriate to their target audience and pitch their product. Personal Web logs are another popular media for electronic buzz marketing campaigns; advertisers seek out authors of the "right kind of blog" and trade product or currency for promotion. Instant messaging applications are also being looked at as a vehicle for carrying out buzz marketing campaigns with either humans or IM bots doing the pitching. As with all buzz campaigns, the power of the IM model relies on the influence an individual has in an established small network -- in this case, his buddy list. As technology continues to facilitate the delivery of a electronic buzz marketing message easier, and software applications make message deliveries easier to quantify, some advertising experts predict that electronic buzz marketing techniques will become a standard component in all cross-media advertising campaigns.
A marketing company might pay an actor or socially adept person to use a certain product visibly and convincingly in locations where target consumers congregate. The actor will often be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even realizing that they are being marketed to. An undercover campaign aims to generate buzz, is economical, and once sufficient buzz has been generated, is almost free, as consumers "market" the product to others, through a network of referrals which grows and grows. Marketers find it very hard to predict buzz let alone generate it on demand. An ideal consumer from the example above will not only begin using that product themselves, but will also tell their friends about it, inciting a planned viral marketing campaign that looks spontaneous. Overall, the person doing the marketing looks and sound like a peer of their target audience without any ulterior motive for endorsing the product—employees of the company cannot do undercover marketing, nor can celebrities.
One common approach is to engage the services of a well-respected public personality, such as a performer. The performer may offer to share the product with others in his social or business circles, and may even offer a testimonial of the benefits derived from the use of the product. This approach often works on the rapport that already exists between the performer and interested consumers.
Undercover marketing targets potential customers by concealing the commercial nature of an apparently social transaction. In a typical case an individual approaches a marketing target apparently to provide some information or advice about a product in a way that makes it seem like they are a fellow consumer. In another kind of case, a friend displays a product to you, and encourages its purchase, but fails to disclose their association with the marketing firm. We focus on this second type of case and argue that the constitutive dispositions of friendship that provide for the development and maintenance of intimacy also render friends especially vulnerable to undercover marketing techniques and so to the exploitation of friendship for commercial ends. We show how this is corrupting both of the friendship and the commercial agent.
A famous stealth marketing technique, from the 50?s, involved movie theatres. A single frame saying “Eat Popcorn” was inserted / spliced into film reels and, you guessed it, popcorn sales went shooting up without anyone having any conscious-level sense of where the urge to eat popcorn came from.
Apple is a great example of modern companies that use stealth marketing. How many movies and TV shows do you see these days with people using Apple products? This is also called product placement. For example, if you watch the Jimmy Fallon show, not only does he often use his Mac Book Pro on his desk, but his IPhone as well to check various things throughout the show. Practically every person on film or television connected to an MP3 player is using an IPod. If you watch sports, most players and fighters before competition get “in the zone” through the music that they have on their IPod. Apple products have become so popular, largely in part to their implementation of stealth marketing through major media outlets in conjunction with effectively branding their products while attaching aspects of popular culture to them.
Although buzz marketing is not new, Internet technology has changed the way it's being used. Buzz campaigns are now being initiated in chat rooms, where marketing representatives assume an identity appropriate to their target audience and pitch their product. Personal Web logs are another popular media for electronic buzz marketing campaigns; advertisers seek out authors of the "right kind of blog" and trade product or currency for promotion. Instant messaging applications are also being looked at as a vehicle for carrying out buzz marketing campaigns with either humans or IM bots doing the pitching. As with all buzz campaigns, the power of the IM model relies on the influence an individual has in an established small network -- in this case, his buddy list. As technology continues to facilitate the delivery of a electronic buzz marketing message easier, and software applications make message deliveries easier to quantify, some advertising experts predict that electronic buzz marketing techniques will become a standard component in all cross-media advertising campaigns.