The
Battle For Coca-Cola
Rages On.
Ain't
Nothing Like
The Real Thing, Maybe.
I
Don't Mean To Say
I Told You So, But...
Are
Consumers Smarter
Then We Are?.
The
Four Great Myths
Of Global Branding.
Mr
Bevis Butts Heads
At Mitsubishi
The
Best Laid Plans
Of Mice And Men.
Dare
to Be Great:
The Mad Genius of "The Matrix"
Mitsubishi's
New Marketing Boss
Out Of The Frying Pan.
Concept Is Stronger Than Fact.
Value
Perception In A World
Gone Mad With "Cool"
The
Future of Advertising
The Brand
The
Future of Advertising
The Targets
The
Future of Advertising
The Grid
The
Future of Advertising
The Swarm
Technology
Making The Message
Meaningful
The Only Business That Matters Is The One You're In.
What
Ever Happened To The
Big Idea?
The Post-Advertising Era Is Here
Confessions Of A" Liar For Hire"
Good, Bad and Ugly At the Moment of Truth
A Post-Advertising "Big Idea".
The Value Of A Paying Pustomer.
Emergence Of the "Empire of One".
All customers Are Created Equal
Playing God An Other Atrocities
the
City That Spawned
The Age Of Advertising..
Fear And Self Loathing In Advertising.
The Greatest Success Metric Is Sales.
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Foot In (Word Of) Mouth Disease. Well it looks like the buzz marketing folks really stuck their sleazy foot in it this time. Media watchdogs Commercial Alert who bill themselves as "protecting communities from commercialism" has launched a formal protest with Donald Clark, Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission. Their concern seems to be that companies that conduct so-called "buzz marketing" to influence buying decisions are doing so by means of "stealth." Commercial Alert states that there is evidence that some of these companies are "perpetrating large-scale deception upon consumers by deploying buzz marketers who fail to disclose they have been enlisted to promote products." Well, duh! |
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How can they create a "buzz" if the people they are supposed to be "buzzing" are all led to believe that they are just mindless shills, being manipulated by some faceless corporate monolith. Of course the folks at Commercial Alert believe that "the failure to disclose is fundamentally fraudulent and misleading: and that it might violate federal prohibitions against unfair or deceptive acts and practices affecting commerce," or so their letter to the FTC states. |
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"I read your column every week. Can you help me find out the best way to start an advert agency in the People's Republic?". –C. Chu, Peking Come to the states and get a job at Chait/ Day like everybody else–hw |
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Of course the most blatant use of this technique was covered by 60 Minutes, who nailed Sony Ericsson's $5 million, so-called "Fake Tourist" Campaign, for having 60 actors demo their new T68i digital camera phone by stopping people on the street and asking them to photograph them and their girlfriend (co-shill) in front of the Empire State Building, and the Space Needle in Seattle, only to be pitched by the couple as they tried to return the camera. Now my big question was, just what buzz marketing genius was it that called the folks from 60 Minutes to brag about this pitiful excuse for a sales program? Commercial Alert is petitioning the FTC to "require any and all persons who are paid to engage in such practices to disclose their relationship to the corporation whose products they are pitching, including their compensation." You gotta love these guys. Can't you just see it now. You go to your neighborhood bar and notice this group of hotties all swilling down the latest newski brewski, when suddenly the lot of them breaks into a chant. "We're the girls from Miller Brew. We look like you all want to. Miller paid us 30 bucks. To act like we give a fuck." Of course Jim Stengle, Proctor & Gamble's Global Marketing Officer states that, "Word of Mouth advocacy is the gold standard in marketing." Oh, did we mention that P&G owns Tremor, the buzz marketing agency that is now in hot water for employing as many as 250,000 teens to tout every thing from snack food to motor oil in deep stealth mode? Tremor was given the shakes lately as Forbes reported that the parents of Tremor teenshill 15 year old Andrew Schrijver were up in arms over a pitch from Valvoline even though he hasn't even got a driver's permit. They thought that Tremor was a forum for teen opinion until the product pitches started coming in. So let me get this straight. Just when advertising and marketing are getting the baddest raps ever, some guys come up with a new technique that is so shady it's got the watchdogs straining at their leashes to bring the FTC to ground to shut the whole shebang down. And the clients are actually buying into this crap in spite of the eminent backlash. Yep. That's what I call 21st century brainstorming. When the 20-somethings that are making these brilliant marketing decisions get finished, the concept of shareholder value and brand equity will be so irrelevant that your daughters lemonade stand will have a higher market valuation than any consumer products company in the Global 500. And commercials? Picture this. Two frumps in a kitchen. Marge says, "Hey Mable. You really should try this new Tide with X200. I've been asked to tell you that by the Proctor and Gamble Company that is paying me Screen Actors Guild scale of $914.44 to pitch it to you." While Mable looks on with feigned interest and responds," $914.44? That's $56.23 more than they are paying me to act like I'm interested. Who is your agent?" Stay tuned.
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