| Abstract: |
Changing marketing practices, legal regulations and new media channels push
brands to use different marketing tactics. In all changing marketing tactics,
stealth marketing shines out due to restrictive law that forbids some brands
and sectors to run a marketing campaign in Turkey. As a term stealth marketing
is a technique to deliver the brand's message to the people who should not
realize the message is received as a marketing or sales purpose. In this way,
brands are able to deliver desired messages for their target publics without
getting caught by any restrictive laws. As the main channel to be used under
this purpose is social media that shines out compared to traditional. The main
reason for that is when traditional media is easy to control by the laws but
social media doesn't. In this paper, we made a research about how these banned
brands run a stealth marketing campaign in Turkey. Three brands that run a
clear stealth marketing campaign from the alcoholic beverages sector are
chosen and their campaign and it's social media site (Instagram) are analyzed
with content analysis method for six months of duration. Analyzes show that
brands use made up names and identities for running their campaigns to avoid
getting caught from laws. Also, it is clear that all made up names that brands
use have very similar corporate identities with the original brand. According
to social media analyzes, storytelling shines out as a main structure of
brands use in their Instagram posts and creating an interaction is also shines
out as the main strategy that brands use in their stealth marketing campaigns. |