先週はあまり進みませんでした。
今週がんばります。
－進捗状況－
(1) 『即戦力がつく ビジネス英会話』 Lesson 33まで（未達成）
(2) ビジネス英会話 海外勤務・大滝怜治編 なし（未達成）
(3) The World Is Flat（Thomas L. Friedman） なし（未達）
(4) 『実践ビジネス英語』 Office Chitchat (1)～(3) （達成）
先週の（と言っても実際の放送は先々週ですが･･･）「実践ビジネス英語」のVignetteの前半で、"Shopdropping"という言葉が紹介されていました。ShopdroppingとはShopliftingの反対の手法で、「勝手に or 許可を得て、店に何かを置いてくる」手法のようです。例えば、花屋さんであれば書店で売られている園芸関係の本に自分の店の名刺を挟めば、コストをかけずにターゲット顧客（花や植物に興味のある潜在顧客）に対してに訴求することもできるわけです。しかし、合法性や倫理的な側面からは問題がないわけではありません。
話は変わりますが、「本に名刺を挟み込む」という表現には、"slip business cards into books"と"plant your cards in books"という２つの表現が使われていました。通常は前者でしょうが、後者は園芸（horticulture）関係の本ということから"plant"を使った言い回しが使われているのかと思います。
今回は、"Shopdropping"に関連して考えたことなどを英語で書きたいと思います。太字はVignetteの中で使われた単語や表現です。
This week’s vignette covers an interesting promotion tool named “shopdropping”-one type of guerrilla marketing. Shopdropping is new for me. It is an exact reverse of shoplifting, and shopdroppers might slip business cards into books. For example, if you are a florist, you plant your cards in books about horticulture. In essence, shopdropping means doing something behind shop owner’s back.
Shopdroppers may be against the law without having the shop owner’s permission. But even if they had the permission, is that completely legitimate? I don’t think so because shopdropping might give a false impression to customers.
Suppose you have young children and have a strong interest in child education. You buy a valued book written by an authority. When you flip through the pages of the book, you happen to find a business card of a child education company. This card says, for example, “It’s never too early for child education. Our innovative education program has generated extraordinary results. Only a few openings are left now. Give me a call ASAP”.
You may feel uneasy. You might associate the authority with the child education company, even though there is no solid relationship between the two. This is kind of “halo effect”, which the shopdropper may aim at. So, you should be careful not to fall for the trap.
Viral marketing is similar to guerrilla marketing. It means the Internet form of word-of-month marketing, using e-mail or on line advertising and so forth. Viral marketing is so infectious that customers tend to pass the message to their friends. In other words, viral marketing is inexpensive marketing means which can raise customer awareness resulting in sales increase.
Although viral marketing is an effective marketing tool we can use, there seem to be at least two issues.
The first issue is that some people feel viral marketing too intrusive. The bombardment of e-mails or on-line ads can turn off the targeted customers. As the saying goes, too much is as bad as too little.
Secondly, it is kind of difficult to draw the fine line between viral marketing and other dubious or illegal promotions.