Talk:Roach bait
I have removed the following passage untill there is some evidence of its authenticity: Marketers also use "roach bait" to describe a particular method of guerilla advertising, showing all too clearly what they think of the "average consumer" (and how many companies view their potiential customers). It is generally used to target consumers who seem to have become resistant or inaccesible to other forms of advertising. Tobacco and alcohol companies have been known to use it.
Generally speaking, in this scheme, a marketing company pays a socially adept person, called a roacher, to use their product visibly and convincingly: to use the product in locations where they will be seen doing so by the target consumers and to talk up their product to people they befriend while doing this. If it works, the roacher will be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even noticing it. Then, like roaches, those consumers will try that product themselves and/or tell their friends about, who then try and/or tell, etc. - crafting a planned marketing campaign that looks like spontaneous word of mouth.
This sounds great, but a roach bait campaign must meet certain strict requirements, otherwise it will fail and often backfire. Overall, roachers must appear to be a peer of the roachee(s) with no vested interest in selling a product. Thus, since everyone knows celebrities get paid to endorse products, celebrities can't roach bait (except possibly to other celebrities). More importantly, a roacher must never appear to be selling the product - the most they can do is offer free samples out of enthusiasm and personal kindness. If at any time a roachee finds out they are being or have been marketed into liking the product, they tend turn on the roacher (and that product) in anger over being mislead. For a perfect example, look at most people's reaction to Amway when they find out their "new friend" offering them a "great opportunity" is a actually a distributor trying to sell them a franchise: "You tricked me!"
More recently, perceiving roach baiting's image problems, some marketers have switched to "brand baiting" instead. Still, it seems highly likely roach bait campaigns continue to occur - just very quietly.
See Also
Marketing, Amway, Corporation, Peer-to-peer, word of mouth,
Links
I am not familiar with the use of this term in advertising or marketing. I did a Google search and was unable to find a use as described. I also went to the external link mentioned and did a search but again nothing came up. If someone can give some valid references for this usage, we can reinstate it at that point. mydogategodshat 03:32, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- There is this page. However, I'm not familiar with the term either, so I'll let someone else deal with it. The text doesn't seem very well-written or NPOV either, so it should probably remain here until someone fixes it. -- Minesweeper 03:39, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)