Covert advertising techniques are the opposite of overt advertising techniques. Overt advertising is the typical blatant advertising found in magazines and newspapers, on television, on billboards, on leaflets, and in film trailers. Covert advertising is sneakier and it is cheaper. Covert advertising has been around for years but today it is the hottest trend in promoting products and services. If you are the average American, about $900 per year is paid by the business community just to get your attention, whether you are 3 years old, 30 or 80. That's a lot of money to get your attention and attention is what it's all about. Your brain can't pay attention to all of these advertising messages if it doesn't know which ones to pay attention to. For this reason advertisers teach your brain what to pay attention to and some of the strategies they use are brilliantly clever.

Some typical covert advertising techniques that are widely used these days are:

Product placement within films and on television programmes.

Plugs occur in many places. In supermarkets reps plug products by getting you to try them before you buy them; this is a very frequent occurrence, especially with new products that have just come to the supermarket, or products that are unconventional. Like a new type of cheese.

Another kind of example are the Celebrities like Rob Lowe, Kathleen Turner and Lauren Bacall who have hit the talk show circuit with what amounts to promotions for medications...all paid for by the pharmaceuticals. Sometimes covert, sometimes overt...always effective. They are effective because a fan of say, Kathleen Turner will notice she uses a certain brand, and say, “Oh, I want to be like her, so I will use that type of brand also.”

Many people argue about the ethics of covert advertising, saying it is wrong, but there is one fact that people cannot argue with. Covert Advertising works; it raises interest, awareness and gets consumers attention. All the things advertisers hope to achieve, and it costs less than a 30 second advert on ITV.

• Consumers feel happy because they have a cheap or free product.

• It’s a quick way to get people using or thinking about your product.

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