What is Undercover Marketing and How is It Done?
Gone are the days when people used to enjoy advertisements between a movie or serials. In today’s era, either the ads get skipped or the channels get changed. Hence, to combat a modern problem, a modern solution has to be adapted. To overcome this stress of less effectiveness, brands have come up with the idea of undercover marketing.
Undercover marketing or stealth marketing is a marketing strategy where marketing agencies introduce a product to the target audience in such a way that it doesn’t look like advertising. Marketers try to convey the message in “hidden words” without making it obvious. Generally, companies hire marketing agents who act like ordinary people and advertise a product in unobvious ways. Undercover marketing is basically a silent marketing ploy where brands have lesser intentions to create hype. This form of marketing is more effective for those potential customers who don’t like traditional marketing channels.
Undercover marketing is huge on the internet, where companies can pay others to create positive reviews of their products in blogs, forums and comment sections. This has created a huge number of additional undercover marketing opportunities.
what benefits does undercover marketing bring?
*Pre-launched interest: Undercover or stealth marketing is beneficial for the promotion of pre-launch products. It creates favourable conditions to help grab the mindshare of the targeted group and then make them want the item. It makes people impatient for the reveal. And the moment it occurs, they can jump in crowds to take their share no matter what the price is. This can help the company in getting short-term goals, which are something unusual for usual businesses. However, while carrying out stealth marketing, marketers need to be careful enough to support planning their strategies. As a result, it will assist in creating a continuous buzz in marketing.
*Promoting without advertising: Considering that advertising sectors are so saturated, getting ads registered seems challenging and also, people do not bother to look at ads nowadays. Hence, grabbing attention by stealth marketing is a lateral way to sway the customer. Stealth marketing has the power to captivate thousands of people.
*Boosts customer base: This type of marketing can offer marketers a chance to identify potential target groups. A company will get to know exactly the target audience who can buy items by displaying items or generating buzz. Besides, while carrying out stealth marketing, marketers can delete errors and finetune their strategy, along with filtering target groups.
*Cost efficient: By conducting stealth marketing strategies, marketers can do away with continuous advertisement exposure, which helps save money and unexpected expenditure. Besides, they also do not need to shoot in posh locations or studios. Rather, they can easily create simple videos by using icons or ad heroes, whose presence can become mediums to gain audience interest. This also reduces costs to minimal expense.
*Brand image: Stealth marketing is the initial step towards building a potential brand image among the masses. Consumer-brand linkages do not stop the interest. It can further move to the brand association, then brand recall, and eventually become loyal customers. All of those can be possible as customers contain a very first-time good impression of the brand or item. It is also made by putting into such practice as a sole method of propaganda.
While looking at the benefits, one must also peek into the other side of the coin as well.
*Ethical dilemma: Consumers who are unaware that they are being targeted for marketing do not have the option to opt-out. Because of its misleading nature, undercover marketing can be termed unethical.
*Endangering the brand’s reputation: The efforts may backfire on the brand, causing potential buyers to abandon the brand entirely.
*Losing credibility is a possibility: The use of stealth marketing techniques causes a trust issue between customers and marketers. Some perceive it as a form of deception used to manipulate customers.
