Meaning of surrogate advertising:

The literal meaning of “surrogate advertising” is duplicating the brand image of

one product extensively to promote another product of the same brand. Surrogate
advertising is when an advertisement has the logo or brand of another company
advertised within it. One essential function that surrogate advertising does is that of
brand recall and not necessarily an exercise in increasing sales. The product shown
in the advertisement is called the “surrogate”. The surrogate could either resemble
the original product or could be a different product altogether, but using the
established brand of the original product. The sponsoring of sports/leisure/cultural
events and activities using a liquor brand name also falls in the category of
surrogate advertising.

Surrogate marketing:
The essence of Surrogate marketing lies on Communicating the value of a
particular banned or illegal product/service of a company by using certain
acceptable brand extensions of the same company with the same logo and brand
name. It refers to intentionally utilizing a company, person, product or service to
help convey the message of another product or service. It can also be define as
duplicating the brand image of one product extensively to promote another product
of the same company.

The history of surrogate marketing existed from long years backs in different
connotations and applicable not only the liquor, narcotic products but service
categories also like movie promotions. But it comes in limelight when a few years
ago in UK, where housewives protested against liquor and narcotic advertisements
and demanded to ban on advertisement of alcoholic and narcotic products. After
ban on products this industry left with no other relaying option than surrogate
marketing.
As example, using item songs to promote the films or promoting big stars‟
guest appearance as a major role in movies, using sodas, fruit-juices, water with
Liquor, Cigarette, Bidi, and Tobacco brand names can be seen on TVs and posters.
It works as a viral and opinion leader kind of way to top of the mind recall
and awareness for the target consumer group, who can decode the message. Have
you ever wondered why companies like Bacardi and Royal stag entered the field of
music CDs and are advertising it so rampantly? Or why Kingfisher got into mineral
water? Why Hayward‟s 5000 soda and its „Honsla anthem‟ are so popularized,
whereas it‟s originally a liquor brand?
The makers of these brands have either been banned from advertising their
original products or their marketing activities were restricted by the norms and
regulations of the countries in which they advertised.
These are all cases of surrogate marketing. Surrogate marketing can be
defined as an intentional utilization of a company, person or object to help convey
the message of another party. The term needn‟t always have negative connotations
as quoted in the examples above. It can have positive connotations as well. It can
be considered somewhat similar to grass-root or viral marketing in which a
marketing firm or the marketing wing of a firm recruits people to spread the
message. Positive surrogate marketing can also refer to employing a representative
to the manufacturer who will sell your product.
However, like in everything else, the darker side of surrogate marketing has
always been more talked about and become a trend than the positive side.
Surrogate marketing has been popularly used as a means of promoting products
and services that are considered unhealthy, unethical, illegal or immoral by some
groups in particular or by the society at large, in a way that it becomes acceptable
to the society. For instance, there are strict norms on the advertising of liquor and
tobacco in many countries including India. In such countries, companies promote
their products by associating with and promotion of more acceptable brands. For
instance, everybody knows four squares is a company making cigarettes, but it
doesn‟t advertise its cigarettes, but it is more known for the Four Square bravery
awards among the general public. In this way, the customer is aware of the
acceptable brand but also draws a connection to the related product which is being
surrogate marketed through such efforts.
 Surrogate marketing generally happens in two contexts:
 One, where the entire marketing function is outsourced or given away and
the group then providing the marketing is referred to as the surrogate
marketing department; and
 Two, where firms indulge into brand-extensions into products which are
legal and more acceptable to the general public, while fitting well into the
government norms and regulations. And in most cases, the companies are
not bothered about how their surrogate product is doing in the market.
The main reason to introduce the surrogate product in the market is to remind
the customers each time they see the advertisement or the product on the store
shelf, of the original product.
There is another variant of surrogate marketing. Let‟s say for instance, that you are
manufacturing a particular product A. This product A requires a particular service
B, which you don‟t provide. You sign a contract with another service-providing
firm X, which provides the requisite service B. Now the firm X agrees to provide
the service B, and use only your product A for it. Here, the service provider of
service B serves a surrogate marketer for your product A. This could be both in the
positive and the negative sense.

Surrogate marketing is now done by

1. Sponsoring events like Fashion Weeks, events like rock shows and selling other
cover products, IPL, Formula one etc.
2. Facebook and social media like secret group sharing, page creation, chatting, mail
3. Internet, digital and print media, like TV ads, call service, SMS

A. Film Industry and surrogate marketing

Movies like low budget or low starrer uses these kind of marketing to
mislead the audience, an audience decode this message as his stereotypical way
and get in to watch this movie, which is total far related to the message.
Kollywood movies like Dhanam, Dindigul Sarathi has opted such kind of
marketing, Kuselan uses the guest role of Rajneekant in its‟ 90% posters to market
like main actor. Bollywood movies like Kaal, Delhi Belly‟s promotions as
a Shahrukh Khan and Amir Khan acted movies can also be considered in this line.
B. Typical Alcoholic/Narcotic brands and products promoted by surrogate
marketing

Brand Communicating product Main Product

Category

Bagpiper Water and soda, cassettes, CDs Whisky

McDowells Water and soda Whisky

Red and White Bravery awards Cigarettes

Teachers Bravery awards Whisky

Kingfisher Calendars and mineral water Beer

Pan Parag Pan masala Gutkha

Johny walker Soda Whisky

Royal challenge Golf accessories and mineral Whisky

water

Four square white Water rafting and gliding Cigarettes

Wills lifestyle Apparels, Accessories Cigarettes

Bacardi Cassettes and CDs Rum

Smirnoff, Aristocrat Apple juice Vodka

502 Pataka 502 Pataka Tea Bidi

Haywards 5000 Darting kids Beer

AC Black Apple juice Whisky

 Surrogates as a brand personality

Using celebrities or associated persons in advertising, arouses the customer to take

a chance of trial, help them to crack the message. Suppose for example Sunny
Leone is advertising for a religious movie, the customers who are aware about
Sunny Leone can easily get the communicated message.
Communication fit for Alcoholic and narcotic industry
Being banned to the normal advertising of its core message to the audience has left
orphan to the liquor, narcotic and pornography industry, so as a possible choice
they are more prone to depend on surrogate marketing, due to its effectiveness in
terms creating awareness, recall and selling products to the target consume
Target Consumer base (India):
Alcoholic Industry Market Market
beverage size(crores) size growth

Liquor Country Not 58 15%

liquor quantified million

IMFL 6000

Beer 2200 70 10-12%

million

[Source: indiamarkets.com, Dec. 2011]IMFL: Indian made foreign liquor

 Surrogate Ads as a smart way of marketing
Surrogate Ads are a creative & smart solution to make potential customers
recall and aware about products which are not be allowed by the law to advertise in
certain type of public media.

1. Ride on some other more popular product and/or concept

2. Strong sense of positioning of brand Identity and deployment
3. It creates strong association with customers, e.g. Vodafone ads.

The existence & its types:-

1. Happens when there is ban on alcoholic and tobacco advertising.
Therefore, companies in banned industries are introducing brand extensions
with products that are legal to advertise with the same brand name as the
brand product.

Example:
Many can recall the Bacardi ads of yore with the famous Bacardi
Music! Again, it was not the beverage brand that was being promoted. The
direct promotion was for the Bacardi soda and the Music CDs, but if you see
the lyrics (which cannot be contested) it does talk about Bacardi RUM!

2. Marketing banned products by collaborating with social causes, so

that not only do they get the audience‟s association, they‟re in line with the
ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) but they get a broad platform
to market their products.
 Example:-
Red & White cigarettes are manufactured by Godfrey Phillips India ltd.
They have always utilized top film stars depicting through advertisements
promoting their product. Along with that they also have an actual bravery
award ceremony. Press coverage is also given.

4. Marketing done at the stake of another company.

Example:-
Let us assume there is a Big Brand called “A”. It wishes to advertise
something but does not want to put attention on itself. So it uses a smaller
company, let‟s say “B”, usually owned by “A”, to propagate those
advertisements. Usually it is done to create a negative impression about a
rival Brand, or to market controversial stuff. So in this case, even if there is
any legal action, it will be against “B” and not “A”. Since “B” is a small
company there won‟t be much loss!

This as we know is a promotion by Kingfisher. Though Kingfisher airlines

have a full-fledged business (Company “A”) but it has small promotions like
the Kingfisher Calendar (Company “B”) to promote its brand of Kingfisher
beer.
 Impacts Of Surrogate Marketing:-
1. A lot of marketers, health industry, ASCI and various other NGOs which work
towards the health of people believe that sale of banned products is difficult to stop
with as many regulations possible but at least these products could be less glorified
and less publicized to curb sales. Surrogate advertising breaks the bound of these
regulations and uses a smart way to promote these brands and make sure that these
products are marketed in the best possible way and as indirect as possible to avoid
any conflicts with the regulatory boards.

2. Impacts like early experimentation and regular consumption of alcohol and other
products can be visibly seen amongst youth and teenagers too.

3. The further developments contribute even more in lowering the cola-beer ratio
bringing along with it an undesirable lifestyle supposedly mimicking a global
perspective.

4. The positive impact can be mostly seen on brands whose sales thrive on
advertisements and promotions and the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic
Beverages Companies (CIABC) too maintains that the advertisement of products
by the liquor industry must be allowed.

Impact on Stakeholders and Business environment

Positive Negative

Economic

Government generates revenue Company ends up with high cost of

advertising

Profiting media by paying high

advertising cost

Social
Don‟t effect on others who are unaware Misleading to younger generation

Focused to selective target segment Challenging the ethical way of doing

business

Leads to healthy environment Leads to promote unhealthy products

Legal

Company doesn‟t breaks the legal

spectrum

Some examples of surrogate marketing in india

1. DIAGEO: The Diageo has associations with its brands. First, Smirnoff, that has
cult association with popular music events like the “War of the DJs”, “Nightlife
Exchanges”, etc. Johnny Walker is another famous brand of the company, who
successful endorsers – Vijay Amritraj & Narayan Murthy have made the brand
very popular. They have also made popular its „Striding man‟ logo, which now
also has a society in its name – the Striding Man society for Johnny Walker
drinkers. Smirnoff advertises its party and club music VDs well on the TV as well,
which are popular among the high-class people ard socialites.
2. SAB MILLER: Sab Miller has been promoting its brand Haywards 5000 has
famous actors like Suniel Shetty and Sanjay Dutt endorsing the brand. However,
they do not promote the beverage as such, but are endorsers for Haywards 5000
club soda. Soda promotion is wholly acceptable to the society. There have known
to be associations with Fosters & Australia, which also surrogate markets its
beverages through its mineral water range.
3. BACARDI: Those ads of the times gone by featuring the very famous Bacardi
music…that did not promote the beverage brand, but the music CDs and the club
soda. This was indirect brand building for Bacardi. If you listen to the lyrics of that
popular song carefully, you can hear it talking about the Bacardi rum. But the rum
is not being promoted officially, it‟s the music being promoted, so the lyrics cannot
be contested at all. Off late, a cocktail-mixer app has been designed for the iPhone
by Bacardi. But this is not surrogate marketing, its indirect marketing. The CDs
and soda is surrogate marketing.
 4. UB Group: The UB group is the talk of the town, not for its liquor, not for its
boss, not for its marketing, but for its airlines. However, this is one firm that has
taken surrogate marketing to heights that are beyond thought.

 Kingfisher: This is one brand with the most divergent sources of surrogate
marketing – Kingfisher Airlines (which may soon be taken off the list), the
Kingfisher calendar, the Kingfisher bird logo, which is a part of the logo of the
television channel – NDTV Good Times, and a show on the same channel
“Making of the calendar”. And moreover, the brand doesn‟t need a full-time brand
ambassador. Vijay Mallya himself and his trail of bikini-clad calendar girls are
brand ambassadors unto themselves.
 Bagpiper: Another club soda surrogate. Akshay Kumar has been saying since
ages now, “Khub jamega rang jab mil baithenge teen yaar, ap, main aur bagpiper.”
But it is being said of the soda, not the hard drink!
 Royal Challenge: Needless to say, the biggest & most expensive surrogate
one could ever get for a product – the Royal Challenger Bangalore pay testimony
to this.
 Whyte & Mackay: Its silent marketing, with making a presence on the
Royal Challengers Bangalore players‟ jerseys. Nothing beyond that actually.
 White Mischief: Zaid Khan, Fardeen Khan promoting the White Mischief
holidays, not to forget the cheerleaders in the IPL as well.

Though some of these are full-time interest and the company does bother if
they do well in the market or not, they are still surrogate marketing the hidden
product.
Surrogate marketing can be considered a smart way of marketing products as
the ad doesn‟t name the product as such, but by just communicating the brand
name, the original product is being marketed. They are actually more context-
based. The judgment of whether they are right or not is left with the customer.
Imagine the amount of creativity that goes in to produce one such ad or even come
with a product that could be used as a surrogate for marketing.
This trend majorly helps to take a diversion to go across the rules and
regulations in particular regions. These rules could be of the government or just the
societal norms. If it is liquor and tobacco in India, it could be some other things in
some other countries. But companies don‟t stop making such products, neither are
they banned altogether. Just the marketing is put under the scanner or regulated.
Surrogate marketing proves to be a useful tool to take a roundabout route and reach
the target.

Positives:
This kind of marketing acts as a tool for the product, for which otherwise
marketing is banned in various nations due to laws, however these businesses bring
loads of revenue both to the government and the organization as the whole. E.g.
Beverage industry in India is worth Rs.60, 000 crore, and contributes around Rs.
22,000 crore to Indian government.

Negatives:
It is the cons that have always been in news about Surrogate marketing.
These campaigns primarily promote the products which in a way are unhealthy,
unethical or illegal. For example, organizations promote their brands of alcohol by
tying the brand names to more acceptable products like soda or mineral water, and
in this way, customer gets confused in figuring about the relation between two
products, and they get lured to it.

Future Alternatives
Having high growth and market penetration of other marketing channels
like, direct marketing and mobile commerce can be considered as options for these
industries because of its larger impact and reachability to target consumers.
Take away
Finally, we conclude that for industries like, liquor, cigarette, bidi, tobacco and
porn have to depend on surrogate marketing to survive and grow. Surrogacy is
serving their purpose; this trend will also be leverage by other industries to recall
strong brand association and loyal consumer base. But surrogate marketing in other
industries will serve the purpose or not it is questionable.