Stealth Marketing

 

           While watching Making Cents Out of Teens: Merchants of Cool, a documentary about the various techniques used by advertisers to sell their products and how this must change over time, I came across the term “stealth marketing.” According to marketing-schools.org stealth marketing is any type of marketing technique in which the advertisers are trying to sell something to consumers without the consumers knowing they are being sold something. A very common example of this would be product placement in a movie or TV show, or placing actors out in cities to talk to normal people about whatever product they are trying to push. The goal of this type of advertisement is to create a buzz around a certain product, so that people will be more receptive to direct advertisement later on. I am interested in the ethicality of stealth marketing. When looking at the definition, I feel very strongly that it is not ethical and I feel like I have been purposefully deceived and taken advantage of. I feel offended that people may have, or at least have tried to appeal to use my subconscious to control me. But when I look at actual examples of this technique, I feel better about it. It seems a bit more obvious than I had originally imagined. Like with product placement, it’s either so subtle that I didn’t recognize it, or so blatantly obvious that I laugh at it. If I ever make a decision based solely on product placement, it will most likely be to not buy a product because it was so annoying. At that point, I’d probably go with the competition just to spite the company. But very rarely do I think it would ever come down to just that. That being said, I would absolutely promote a product in person or on social media for money, but it would probably have to be for a considerable amount of money. It would also depend on the product, how I feel about it, and its reputation. Although almost every product has a price that I would do it for. I think my only condition would be that people know I’m getting paid for it. I’m not too sure why, but the transparency would make me feel much better. I would like to be a non-deceptive as possible. However, I don’t think I would be too hard for people to figure out that I am getting paid for it, just like how it is fairly easy for me to spot this marketing.

For more information of stealth marketing, go to: http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/stealth-marketing.html