Stealth Marketing- The Reinvention of Marketing As You Know It.

Marketing that is Education, Not Sales-Based!

Modern marketing is informed by the necessity to satisfy the needs of sophisticated, savvy and informed consumers who demand quality products that assures them that they have received value for their money. In the present marketplace, consumers do exhibit high levels of price sensitivity and price awareness coupled with minimal brand loyalty and as such they do show greater inclination to switch brands depending on the brand quality and brand price vis-à-vis the quality and price of a competing brand. For this reason, marketers must make appropriate adjustments in order to cater for these new and adaptable needs. Furthermore, more products continue to crowd the marketplace and the marketer must thus adapt appropriately in order to stand out from other marketers, and also maximize the profitability of the brand. This can be achieved using two generic marketing strategies: marketing ceaselessly (and sometimes ruthlessly) to customers; and the unconventional marketing strategy of catching the consumer unaware (and sometimes in unexpected ways). The latter strategy is designated stealth marketing, while the former is designated as sales-based marketing.

Sales-based Marketing

Sales-based Marketing has always been the main approach practiced by the overwhelming majority of individuals, entrepreneurs and corporations since the beginning of modern history. Examples of major corporations that use this strategy are McDonald’s, Nike, Disney, and Coca-Cola. Even though it is the only kind of marketing that most people recognize today, it is rapidly becoming a dinosaur.

In Sales-based marketing, the focus is largely on the needs of the Seller and her/his goal to consummate the Sales transaction as quickly as possible. In this strategy, the marketers places maximum emphasis on their products by focusing on the existent competitive advantage, devastating the profit sanctuaries of their competitors, openly plagiarizing the ideas of other entities and even overhauling business operations when deemed necessary. In this strategy, some marketers do use coercive techniques to market their products, and at certain extremes, they may use deception in order to convince a person to purchase their products.

The key limitation of this strategy is that that few people like to be sold and fewer still enjoy being closed! (Of course, this is the sole focus of selling and of most marketing efforts today). Sales-based Marketing often causes people to withdraw, leads to negative perceptions, and kills trust. At its worst, it feels aggressive and overreaching to the prospect, and makes them feel like a target/victim.

The remainder of this article will provide a deeper dive into the many advantages of an alternate universe collectively designated Stealth (or Education)-based Marketing.

Stealth (Education)-based Marketing.

This approach couldn’t be more different than Sales-based Marketing, and as such, represents the rapidly emerging new paradigm. The goal of this approach to take it slow by adding true, substantive insight and value at each touch point in the marketing campaign. This redefinition of marketing practice has been necessitated by the fact that the modern customer is informed, versatile and also exhibits poor brand loyalty (especially if he or she is not well informed about the benefits of a specific brand).

The four basic elements of the marketing mix (product, promotion, price and place) have enabled marketing experts to classify stealth strategies into six different marketing techniques which are briefly discussed hereafter. To begin with, viral marketing uses the digital platform to popularize the product via email marketing, blog marketing and anonymous online marketing. Brand pushers uses hired actors who approach naïve persons in real-life situations (such as in trendy bars, tourists hotspots and music stores) and then stealthily market a given product by slipping commercial messages to such persons during normal conversations. Celebrity marketing is another technique which uses paid celebrity endorsements whereby the celebrities play the part of contended customers who are offering unpaid testimonials. In Bait-and-Tease Marketing, a new product is promoted via a mock movie trailer such as when Mercedes Benz used a mock trailer for Lucky Star to market their SL brand. Marketing products in video games involves embedding logos and brands of that product in video games. Finally, Marketing in Rap and Pop Music involves embedding commercial messages in rap and pop songs.

In stealth or education-based marketing, the focus of marketing is reversed as it zeros in on the needs of the Buyer and her/his goal to gain enough insight as to be an informed purchaser. The rationale behind this helping hand approach is the principle of Reciprocity. This means the Marketer is willing to take on the education process to inform, in the belief that this will in turn, encourage the prospective buyer to reciprocate the favor by moving them to the top of the short list of candidates under consideration.

This approach is often called Content-Marketing, as the currency it is trading in is Knowledge. At its best, this methodology creates a corporate culture that seeks to differentiate itself in the marketplace by demonstrating its authentic thought-leadership. The best practices of Education-based marketing revolve around enlightened offerings of information and training in the form of articles, special reports, white papers, speeches, webinars, books, etc.

Thought leadership content tends to unfold in (X) number of seamless steps, usually in the same article, webinar, etc. These are compositely encompassed in the IDEA model. In the IDEA model, the marketer Identifies the pertinent issues affecting the target audience and their (target audience) sources of trusted information, and then Develops the thought leadership platform that adequately and appropriately conveys the positions and ideas concerning the product; and thereafter Engage the target audience through various channels such as social outlets, digital platforms and traditional communication channels; and afterwards Assess the impact of the marketing on the overall performance of the business in terms of sales volume, profitability and market reception of a new product. The thought leader needs a toolkit which is made up of the following: articles, events, writing a book, newsletters, white papers, case studies, email newsletters, research reports and blogs.

The marketers are sometimes faced with a dilemma concerning how much information is appropriate for a consumer. When in doubt as to how much information to convey here is a rule of thumb: The appropriate length for a research report, book or article etc, is the least possible number of words which can convey a strong argument.