An Analysis of Social Media Marketing with Reference to Surrogate Advertisements on Global Level

Abstract

'Surrogate Advertising' is a form of advertising which is used to promote banned products like cigarettes and alcohol, The banned product (alcohol or cigarettes) may not be projected directly to consumers but rather masked under another product under the same brand name, so that whenever there is mention of that brand, people start associating it with its main product (the alcohol or cigarette). It is an effective way of communicating the value of a product or service with large exposure to target consumer. It uses different types of appeals to connect to consumers spread across the globe. It is just a strategy used to generate top of the mind recall. While this continued helping them to promote their liquor through this route as many companies did not even modify the existing advertisements and instead just replaced the text and voice-overs. This is what is challenging about surrogate advertisement as for ethical business practices one should not mislead consumers especially young generation to lean towards drinking alcohol.