Talk:Roach bait

removed

I have removed the following passage untill there is some evidence of its authenticity: Marketers also use "roach bait" to describe a particular method of guerilla advertising, showing all too clearly what they think of the "average consumer" (and how many companies view their potiential customers). It is generally used to target consumers who seem to have become resistant or inaccesible to other forms of advertising. Tobacco and alcohol companies have been known to use it.

Generally speaking, in this scheme, a marketing company pays a socially adept person, called a roacher, to use their product visibly and convincingly: to use the product in locations where they will be seen doing so by the target consumers and to talk up their product to people they befriend while doing this. If it works, the roacher will be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even noticing it. Then, like roaches, those consumers will try that product themselves and/or tell their friends about, who then try and/or tell, etc. - crafting a planned marketing campaign that looks like spontaneous word of mouth.

This sounds great, but a roach bait campaign must meet certain strict requirements, otherwise it will fail and often backfire. Overall, roachers must appear to be a peer of the roachee(s) with no vested interest in selling a product. Thus, since everyone knows celebrities get paid to endorse products, celebrities can't roach bait (except possibly to other celebrities). More importantly, a roacher must never appear to be selling the product - the most they can do is offer free samples out of enthusiasm and personal kindness. If at any time a roachee finds out they are being or have been marketed into liking the product, they tend turn on the roacher (and that product) in anger over being mislead. For a perfect example, look at most people's reaction to Amway when they find out their "new friend" offering them a "great opportunity" is a actually a distributor trying to sell them a franchise: "You tricked me!"

More recently, perceiving roach baiting's image problems, some marketers have switched to "brand baiting" instead. Still, it seems highly likely roach bait campaigns continue to occur - just very quietly.— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

See Also

Marketing, Amway, Corporation, Peer-to-peer, word of mouth,

Links

Adbusters

I am not familiar with the use of this term in advertising or marketing. I did a Google search and was unable to find a use as described. I also went to the external link mentioned and did a search but again nothing came up. If someone can give some valid references for this usage, we can reinstate it at that point. mydogategodshat 03:32, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There is this page. However, I'm not familiar with the term either, so I'll let someone else deal with it. The text doesn't seem very well-written or NPOV either, so it should probably remain here until someone fixes it. -- Minesweeper 03:39, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

That which is called "roach bait" in this article sounds a lot like "under cover marketing". Maybe the article should be renamed. mydogategodshat 01:43, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Indeed, "under cover", "stealth", and "underground" marketing - and this term all refer to the same thing. I'll repost the above info under one of those.Isogolem 01:21, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Roach motels

Roach Motels actually do trap roaches, rather than poisoning them then having them go back to the nest. See [1]. Removing references to Roach Motel from article. Dave6 18:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The only non-cockroach in Cockroaches category

Removing Category:Cockroaches

>implying marketers and cockroaches don't have a lot in common — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.61.164.169 (talk) 23:21, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Merger, Rewrite or Candidate for Deletion?

This article reads poorly. Should this article be merged, rewritten or deleted?Hopquick (talk) 16:24, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Boric Acid Section

Added NPOV and citations needed... reads very poorly. Needs rewrite with proper sources by someone (else) with domain knowledge; current text is unsalvageable. Agree with User:Hopquick that merger, rewrite, or delete is appropriate here. trisweb (Talk) 18:02, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Additional study info that contradicts several points in this article

This brief report of a study by Rutgers university contradicts several of the points made on the main page. It also, being more recent, includes info on a new insecticide not mentioned on the Wikipedia page:

http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/2-Secondarykill.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Interzone826 (talk • contribs) 01:53, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Link is already down.202.73.1.98 (talk) 02:26, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

emetophagic

Add some link to the meaning of emetophagic. Jidanni (talk) 01:09, 23 March 2020 (UTC)