Next Level of Guerilla Marketing!

Imagine yourself sitting in the park watching a family, who seem to be tourist, taking picture after picture. As they get closer the women asks you take a picture of all of them. They seem like a great family and it would be your pleasure to help them out. The slick camera slides into your hand and you examine it, looking for the right button. If you seem interested at all the "tourist" will help to to tell you about the camera and where it can be found by staying in character the whole time. Would this make you feel deceived?

A 60 Minute report says that they received different kind of responses. One participant said "I think that the moment when we discover we've been duped causes a backlash" while others thought it was a great way to learn about new products.

Sony Ericsson is just one company that has begun to use this kind of method to promote new products. Sony hires representatives that have good social skills and knowledge on the product at hand to casually entice its audience. The actors are usually situated in large cities where there is high traffic volume.

Other companies such as Essential Reality hired young adults to sit in a Starbucks and play around with a new product called the "P-5 Glove". The product, aimed at males, is a video game device used to fly planes and and fire weapons on their computers. Because the nature of the product and the target audience, the company felt it would be more effective to use undercover marketing rather than main stream media. As the reporter explained, the two young men let many Starbucks visitors try out the device as well as answered many of their questions about the product.

It seems like a smart way to get people looking at your product but there are two things to consider before using undercover marketing. One, does your product make sense to advertise this way? Electronics seem to work the best because they are interactive. If your trying to advertise the new Tide detergent, this type of marketing would not be as effective. Two, if someone was to find out about the scheme what would it do to the brand? A threat that seems possible is when consumers find out they then have less trust and respect in the brand.

Technically the representatives are not lying to its audience but morally it seems as if they are. The two young guys with the P-5 Glove sat in Starbucks not because they really wanted to but because they were paid to.

As of now, people trust word-of-mouth marketing because they see it as the truth and not funded by a companies bank account. Undercover marketing is an innovative way to break through the clutter but if more and more companies use this option, I believe that our society as whole could become less trustworthy with each other.

Although the concept is strong, these companies should not be allowed to do what they are doing. Companies are still able to let the generally public play around with new products but only when the endorser is clearly stated. We get lied to enough by advertisers, I think society should at least have the decency to know when this is happening.