BBC Learing English Stealth Marketing Lyrics

Hello, I'm Callum Robertson. How do you decide what particular product to
buy? These days we are bombarded by advertising and marketing messages: on
television, on radio, product placement in films, adverts on the underground,
posters in the streets, people handing out fliers, pop ups when we browse the
internet, junk mail sent to our homes or spam to our email, cards left under the
windscreen wipers of our cars, it goes on and on. According to one
commentator we receive several thousand marketing messages every day.
But it's not only these obvious and direct forms of advertising that help us to
decide what to buy, in fact we often ignore these because we are sick and tired
of all the advertising. We know it's advertising and we don't really trust it.
One genuine and honest way we get information is through word of mouth.
Word of mouth. This expression means we hear about something because other
people have been talking about it. Maybe family or friends recommend
something to us, tell us a film is good, for example. We trust their opinion so
we go to see the film.
We might also learn about things because we overhear other people talking
about them - on the train, in a café or in the pub, for example. But now it seems
that even this form of information may not be entirely genuine.
Advertising companies are having to become more creative and imaginative in
order to sell us things. One new form of advertising that is becoming more and
more common is known as buzz marketing or stealth marketing.