GuerrillaMarketingExampleFakeTourists
Question: Guerrilla Marketing is the substitution of marketing smarts
for marketing money. Often, however, it is practiced in questionable taste or
in a gray area. When is Guerrilla Marketing justified? Study this example and
discuss.
An article from www.globeandmail.com,
Thursday, August 1, 2002
By JOHN HEINZL
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Warning to travellers: That "tourist" who asks you to take his
or her picture may actually be part of a covert marketing operation.
Taking guerrilla marketing to a
new level, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications is paying dozens of actors to
pose as tourists at U.S. landmarks such as New York's Empire State Building and
Seattle's Space Needle starting Thursday.
Without disclosing their
connection to the company, groups of two or three actors will ask unsuspecting
people to take their picture using the new T68i cellphone, which can also serve
as a digital camera.
It's called undercover or
stealth marketing and in a world grown
weary of ads companies are using the
sly tactic to flog a range of products including cellphones, alcoholic drinks
and personal care items.
The goal of stealth marketing is
to fly under consumers' advertising radar and make them believe they have had a
spontaneous encounter with an actual user of a product, thereby giving the item
instant credibility.
But critics say it's deceptive
and unethical.
"It's the commercialization
of human relationships," said Gary Ruskin executive director of Commercial
Alert, an anticommercialism group based in Portland, Ore., and founded by
consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
"It's the creep of ads into
every nook and cranny of our lives and culture."
Sony Ericsson defends the
practice as an entertaining and harmless way to engage consumers. "We're
not asking them for money. We're not taking their name and sending them junk
mail. We're just simply trying to show the product in a new and exciting and
viral way," said Jon Maron, the company's director of marketing
In addition to phony tourists,
the company has hired actresses to perform scripted routines at trendy
nightclubs. In one ruse, the actress answers her cellphone and looks at the
caller's picture on its screen. In another, two plants at opposite ends of the
bar play a video game on their phones.
The aim is to get people talking
about the product and to pass the information to others a process known as viral marketing.
"They're not identified as
Sony Ericsson employees because it takes the spontaneity of the conversation
away," Mr. Maron said. If asked, the actors will disclose that they are
being paid Sony Ericsson, he said.
Advocates of undercover
marketing say it is an effective way to cut through the clutter of commercials,
particulary when the target consumers are young people who have learned to tune
out most forms of advertising. When they see another person using a product, it
makes an impression.
"Peer pressure is the best
selling tool you could possibly have," said Adam Starr, president of
Gearwerx, a Montreal-based youth marketing agency that has has used undercover
campaigns for more than a year to promote such products as cellphones,
beverages and health and beauty items.
"It's basically marketing
to somebody without them knowing they're being marketed to," he said,
adding that the companies involved do not want to be identified because that
would blow their cover with consumers.
In one technique used by
Gearwerx, two actors board a crowded bus during the morning commute and begin
discussing what they ostensibly did the night before. The scripted conversation
includes liberal mentions of the product being plugged so that everyone nearby
can hear.
Practitioners of undercover
marketing also refer to it as "roach bait marketing". The
unsuspecting consumers are the roaches, and they take the bait and spread it to
friends and family members.