I
recently came across an article on Surrogate Advertising in Marketing
Mastermind, August 2011. This provoked me to think about the “Ban on Surrogate
Advertisement”.
To define, “Surrogate Advertising” refers to advertising
which embeds a brand or product message inside an advertisement which is
ostensibly for another brand or product. In most of the countries, alcohol and
tobacco advertisements are banned by the government. It is a creative
advertisement strategy which helps the companies to promote the products which
are restricted by the government. All the liquor brands, including Kingfisher
are advertising their liquor products in the name of bottled water. But, none
of them are actually interested to promote bottled waters. If the government
really wants to ban such promotions, they will put an end to surrogate
advertisement. In such cases, can companies go for viral marketing? Will it be
a better choice?
To answer this question, let’s first note the awareness
level of these products. Such products are having high attention rate because
of the negative reinforcements. Apart from that, the increase in internet user
base supports the companies to go for viral marketing. Since social networking
sites are becoming popular among the adults, companies are taking advantage of
these sites to conduct some interesting games or events, using this platform as
online customer engagement structure. For example, one of the world’s greatest
viral marketing hit is from Thresher Wines, an UK-based liquor brand, which
made customers to distribute discount voucher coupons for their products
through blogs and emails. So, I feel that viral marketing will be a best
alternative for surrogate advertising.
Think! What will happen to the Bangalore
Royal Challengers team? Does that qualify as surrogate advertising and the team
itself a surrogate product?
Hello Santhosh,
ReplyDeleteWell I have a question, government who promotes the sale of liquor in the open market, I mean TASMAC, why does it not allow for the promotion of the same liquor. May be this is the reason why companies like UB chose to promote their product through "SURROGATE ADVERTISING".
To answer your question as to why are the companies not looking at the Bottled Water market even though it is a highly potential market, its simply because it is not their market.
To add more to my previous statement, SMIRNOFF promotes its product through CDs; and we all know that the market for CDs is almost gone. But "DIAGEO" (manufacturer of Smirnoff Vodka) all it cares about is that the target audience are aware and always remember the name (SMIRNOFF).
Now, If the government is planning to ban "SURROGATE ADVERTISING" then the only easy and cost-effective means left for the liquor manufacturers is to go for "VIRAL MARKETING", and it is very obvious that the reach of VIRAL MARKETING is much faster and wider than that of SURROGATE ADVERTISING or any other means of advertising for that matter.
Thank You.
That's right, Bharath.....but, the issue is more than just brand recall (Smirnoff, etc)......it is also in one way, trying to legalise what is considered to be illegal. Now, the question of what is illegal is essentially an issue that the State has to deal with.
DeleteAt another end, it would also do good, Santosh, if you had captured the history of Surrogate Ad......and if you will all remember, products that use surrogate advertising, seem to have, to a very large extent, an inelastic price demand curve (and what do you think will happen to its advertising elasticity?????)
History says the birth of surrogate advertising started off with British housewives started protesting against the liquor advertisements that lured their husbands. Result of the protest led to stoppage of liquor advertisements in the country and it was then the brand owners came up with promotions of fruit juices and soda using brand name of the liquor.In India Cable TV Network regulation act banned liquor advertisement on TV channels as it was shown in a market survey that advertisements has a direct influence on the different consumption habits of a common man. Thus in India also the trend of surrogate advertisement began.
DeleteAs Mr. GNR said the products that use surrogate advertising have large extent, an inelastic price demand curve. The advertising elasticity is a measure of an advertising campaign's effectiveness in generating new sales. Considering the outside factors, such as the tastes may also result change in quantity of a good demanded. The advertising elasticity of demand is not the most accurate predictor of advertising's effect on sales. So, the viral may influence to generate new sales.
In case of Royal Challengers Bangalore, the owner of the team wants to use his established brand in the IPL business. It is just like using the brand “Virgin” for the many different businesses. It is not that easy to put an end to surrogate advertising because the advertising doesn’t show the liquor product but the thing is they are using the brand name. Because of that we cannot say the companies are illegally trying to legalise what is considered illegal but they are smart enough to tackle the problem. The only way to put an end to surrogate advertising is that the companies would not be allowed to use the same brand name to different businesses.
ReplyDeleteIf ASCI decide to put an end to “SURROGATE ADVERTISING”, the marketers are smart enough to find out other ways of advertising their brand. We cannot say viral marketing is the only best option left out for the marketers, but they will even come out with a new “--------- ADVERTISING”.
That would be the best option Balaji if the government wants really to put an end to surrogate advertising as you said not allowing to use the same brand name for different business. But were that the case the better preferred option would be Viral because of the reach and the subscriber base as what Bharath mentioned.
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