Undercover advertising targets consumers

New York: Birthplace of "real life product placement"

By the BBC's Jane Standley in New York

Consumers around the world may only just be catching on to the idea of "product placement" - the fact that they see certain brands in films because the manufacturers and their advertising and marketing agencies have spent a lot of money placing them there.

But now - in New York - companies are doing "real life product placement".

New undercover guerrilla marketers are being trained. Soon they will be acting in New York's commercial battlefields - its bars and shops.

They are attractive, fashionable, welcoming young people.

They will pretend to be ordinary folk, as they persuade you, unawares, to buy their brand.

'Real communication'

Jonathan Resler heads the company BigPhat which is pioneering the latest selling technique.

Innocent conversation or undercover marketing?

"They create that kind of real communication so they might tell you some relevant information about the brand which you'll go and communicate, you'll go and talk to friends and communicate the same thing."

"But again, the information is real it is just the way we are communicating that information."

But at the restaurant or bar or wherever it is, the information you are being told is actually advertising.

The conversations struck up or the recommendations you overhear are selling not just talking and sometimes even the business owner doesn't even know what is going on.

Busy, fashionable places are being targeted, such as open-air film screenings in New York parks.

Park 'targets'

BigPhat will not say which brands they are pushing at the moment, only that they are working in a park that is packed with thousands of people, all targets, as they are called.

It truly is a case of not knowing if you are in the real world or the advertising world. New York's long, warm, summer days are very popular - a time for being out and about and socialising with friends.

And so, even though we know the guerrilla marketers are here, we don't know what they are selling.

The idea is that the sale spreads through any crowd like a germ. It is also called "viral marketing," and guerrilla companies say their five-fold increase in business proves it works.

'Desperate'

To Richard Linnet of Advertising Age magazine, the new techniques speak of desperate manufacturers and advertisers who are finding it ever harder to reach their young audience.

"Personal video recorders are just starting to become popular and being used and they allow users to cut out ads. Advertisers are worried about this, they are trying to figure out how they can get to consumers with undercover advertising."

American consumers used to being bombarded with advertising on 500 television channels don't seem too concerned though with the ethics question or with calls for regulation.

But, with plans to spread the germ of guerrilla marketing out of the US and into Britain and other countries, that may soon be seen.