FTC To Investigate 'Viral Marketing' Practices

mcflaherty writes "The Federal Trade Commission has stated that it is going to investigate the use of 'Viral Marketing' by corporations. This is the type of advertising that seeks to start a word of mouth campaign for the product via consumers themselves. Previously, consumers themselves set the buzz. But lately advertisement firms are stepping up to the plate themselves, seeding the market with buzz that looks independent of the company, but is in fact funded by them. The crew at Penny Arcade contend that corporate generated buzz is not Viral Marketing, and perhaps Guerrilla Marketing would be a more apt term. Either way, it appears to be a profitable advertising model."

Comments

How low can they go?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Either way, it appears to be a profitable advertising model.

Of course it is, it exploits people's inherent trust for their friends' judgement: "if X says this and X is a nice guy, then X must be true". Only if X is paid by a corporation to spew out nice stuff about some product, it basically wrecks that basic principle of human communication.

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Free speech is free speech. Just be happy they aren't transmitting commercials into your dreams (yet).

As long as a corporation isn't explicitly lieing about their products, I don't see a problem. We hardly need another government restriction on free speech (to go along with McCain-Feingold, obscenity laws, and the attempted CDA laws).

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have friends and you trust them? Obviously you're lost and don't belong here. Why don't you step away from your computer, go outside and play with your "friends."

Re:How low can they go?

[Possibly Malignant]

"if X says this and X is a nice guy, then X must be true"

There's a syntax error in your formula.

Re:How low can they go?

[IgLou]

Free speech should be for people, anything that is "said" by a business should be regulated. Consider this, disclosure prevents leaking information out about anything that could affect your stock price ahead of your official financial statements. That's regulated for a reason. If a corporation is trying to generate hype and calling it "viral marketing" is a lie in my books. The corporation is advertising through viral marketing and I as a consumer deserve to know when I'm looking at a fictionalized account for the purpose of advertising or if I'm looking at the real deal. I deserve to know if a company is trying to sell me something but disguising it as something else.

Re:How low can they go?

[IgLou]

I agree, not to mention there is always a social engineering aspect to viral marketing that I don't like. For me this is a simple case of "If it's advertising, I deserve to know it". An individual totally has the right to say what they want. But if that individual is being directed to say that by a corporation then I deserve to know that.

Now the problem is say "regulate something related to the internet" and it draws flames. But this should be easily regulated to corporations and marketing firms.

Oh and forget viral videos and websites, in major population centers marketing firms hire people who mingle in groups to do this.

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you don't know X as well as you thought.

Re:How low can they go?

[Nasarius]

You're pretty much correct. So-called commercial speech is just barely above obscenity in terms of categories of protected speech. The First Amendment doesn't give you the right to deceptively advertise your product...or bribe politicians, or buy up all the media outlets in the country, etc. That's what makes the "money is speech" assertion so absurd.

Re:How low can they go?

[troll -1]

Free speech is free speech. Just be happy they aren't transmitting commercials into your dreams (yet).

This is considered commercia speech and doesn't have the same First Amendment protections as other speech.

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

But this doesn't mean that the government has to regulate it. This should simply be a civil case between the company and a victim. The only involvement of the government should be in administering the case and calling jurors if needed.

The government has a notoriously bad record when regulating speech. The McCain-Feingold Act, for example, was supposed to be directed at politicians, but later we learned that it could target bloggers. Do you think that the government can write a better law on the much less defined attributes of viral marketing?

Re:How low can they go?

[netglen]

Oh nos, the FTC is now stepping up and taking the mantle of the Thought Police. It's time for the FTC to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch.

Re:How low can they go?

[packeteer]

The Government is allowed to regulate all kinds of speech. You are not allowed to lie about your stocks and spread rumors and deception so that you pump up your own stocks. This is illegal and I think very few people think that commiting fraud through deception is a type of protected speech.

Re:How low can they go?

[Ucklak]

Movie critic David Manning comes to mind.

Re:How low can they go?

[SatanicPuppy]

Type conversion error: Can't convert type Person to type Opinion in statement (-11273).

Re:How low can they go?

[UbuntuDupe]

Please. If you really believe in free speech, you shouldn't distinguish "Clinton is a moron" from "Buying my products is a good idea." Whenever a "business" says something, it requires a person to say it. You can't deny the right to the "business" while claiming to respect the rights of the person who voiced it.

If it's a fraudulent claim, sure, that should be illegal, but it shouldn't matter if it's a person or a "business".

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, makes it a bit easier to figure out who your real friends are.

(Really, if you can't tell the difference between real enthusiasm and fake advocacy, then you've got bigger problems than being "victim" to marketing.)

Re:How low can they go?

[N3Roaster]

In some cases, the government regulates business speech to the point that even telling the truth is not allowed. For example, suppose I buy an organic food product (say, tea) in a large quantity and repackage it to sell in the smaller quantities someone might buy. If I'm not certified for organic processing (yes, moving something from one bag to another is processing), that tea can no longer be called organic in the United States, even though nothing has been done to it that could possibly cause it to not be organic. Saying that it is organic is not allowed. Even the weaker and 100% true claim that it was certified as organically grown is not allowed. (see USDA National Organic Program)

Re:How low can they go?

[IgLou]

There is a huge difference here, imagine trying to establish fraud. If a company hires someone to put up a website with some fanboy going "W00t this product r0x0r!" It's not necessarily fraud, the person may legitimatel feels that way about the product. But it is deceptive and it's intent is to sell the product. By regulation I mean properly labelling these things as being advertising sites or videos. All I want, is to know when a company is endorsing, sponsoring, or behind one of these things and stiff fines or punishment when they are not being up front.

Re:How low can they go?

[fade-in]

This is no free-speech issue. This should be regulated in the same way advertisements on TV are.

You can't hire a bunch of actors, give them a script to read, and air it as customer testimonials.

These viral blogs are essentially doing that. Yet it shouldn't require any new legislation to enforce advertisers to put a prominent disclaimer on these blogs that these are paid opinions.

Re:How low can they go?

[nasch]

Please. If you really believe in free speech, you shouldn't distinguish "Clinton is a moron" from "Buying my products is a good idea."

You're free to say that of course! However, the Supreme Court doesn't agree with you. There's a long history of distinguishing different kinds of speech and protecting them in different ways and to different degrees. Commercial speech versus political speech, for example. Like I said, your viewpoint is valid - just want to make sure you know it's at odds with US law.

Re:How low can they go?

[dgatwood]

Precisely. The word you're looking for is "dramatizations". And you are required by law to disclose when this occurs.

I cite 45 FR 3872, section 255.2:

(b) Advertisements presenting endorsements by what are represented, directly or by implication, to be ``actual consumers'' should utilize actual consumers, in both the audio and video or clearly and conspicuously disclose that the persons in such advertisements are not actual consumers of the advertised product.

And section 255.5

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.

Now, admittedly, this is from an FTC guide and not directly from the relevant body of law. You'd have to ask somebody more familiar with the details of advertising law to tell you which specific sections of code and/or relevant case law that these opinions are derived from. That said, the FTC is well within their rights to investigate this and prosecute any ad agency proven to use guerilla marketing tactics. They are clearly examples of false advertising, and are thus NOT ethical and NOT legal.

Re:How low can they go?

[Talez]

Vodafone in Australia have been doing this for at least a year maybe more. They've had an employee using the alias "Kelly20" on certain messageboards who just slags off the competition constantly.

Eventually they've been outed and banned but in the mean time it does cause quite a bit of chaos and people start touting information thats misleading and taken out of context as fact.

Re:How low can they go?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Of course, nobody would try such a thing on Slashdot.

Re:How low can they go?

[UbuntuDupe]

Thanks for reminding me of something that doesn't contradict any assumption of my post, which was quite specfically worded in terms of "what is required for logical consistency" rather than "what the Supreme Court currently believes" (they can be different, believe it or not).

I really don't know how I'd get through the day if not for showoffs.

Re:How low can they go?

[Sj0]

So people shouldn't have the right to know when they're listening to a commercial advertisement?

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

can't convert person to boolean perhaps?

Re:How low can they go?

[Sj0]

How do we even know you're a person? Maybe you're just another astro-turfer, an actor paid by these marketing companies to try to present a devils advocate to move the window of acceptable behaviour towards something this terrible!

Thanks a lot, asshole. First marketing ruined radio; then TV; then movies; then video games; then the internet; Now they're trying to ruin REALITY. Thought police indeed.

Re:How low can they go?

[LandStander]

When a business releases a viral ad advocating a sell or buy, then let's look into it. Until then try getting up on the other side of the rock.

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just be happy they aren't transmitting commercials into your dreams (yet).

They don't? Then why the hell did I buy these Lightspeed Briefs?!?

Re:How low can they go?

[quixote9]

Couldn't agree more. The reason word-of-mouth is such a powerful promotion is because it's assumed to be independent and uncompensated. Totally objective, in other words. Hiding the advertisement nature of it is exactly what truth in advertising laws are supposed to prevent. Just because it's a new medium doesn't make it less dishonest to lie.

Re:How low can they go?

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

But you know, there was a time when I too felt bad. There are lots of people out there, trying to take your money.

But then I found guns. Guns make loud noises, and when used properly can make a difference in this world. Guns should only be used by a trained individual. Different people behave differently around guns. If you notice adverse effects such as excessive drinking, wifebeater shirts, or people hanging from a tree in your yard, you should stop using guns and see a police officer.

Ask you local law enforcement agency about guns today!

Re:How low can they go?

[AmericanInKiev]

The FTC probably deserves a great deal of criticism (perhaps for failing to prevent the monopolization of the US economy for starters) but "False Advertising" is wrong, and any effort to address it will invariable be conflated with the thought police. I disagree. False Advertising goes beyond the market of ideas, and reaches into the ability of people to compete fairly for sustenance in a market for which we all pay taxes and support in other ways (in the most extreme cases with one's life). Free and functioning economies are a rare and precious excursion from the chaos and mayhem which marks the lives of some 90% of persons now and throughout history.

AIK

Re:How low can they go?

[budgenator]

I was wondering how the editors let such a transparent attempt on to the front page and then I saw this thread and realized it was just to set the mood.

Re:How low can they go?

[inode_buddha]

"Of course it is, it exploits people's inherent trust for their friends' judgement: "if X says this and X is a nice guy, then X must be true"."

Maybe not. To me, it illustrates an exploit of the logical flaw known as "Correspondence != causality". The communication may be flawless but the logic certainly has problems. For example, X may not actually be a nice guy. Product or service "X" may be great for person X but that does not necessarily mean its great for person Y. "Not A" does not necessarily mean "then B."

Re:How low can they go?

[jcr]

Free speech should be for people, anything that is "said" by a business should be regulated

Nonsense. I'm just as entitled to say whatever I want whether I'm speaking for myself or my employer. If I lie, and it causes you some harm, then there's a whole body of tort law to deal with it.

I deserve to know if a company is trying to sell me something but disguising it as something else.

You probably deserve to know if your lover is cheating on you too, but I'm not prepared to toss out another amendment from the bill of rights just to serve that purpose.

-jcr

Re:How low can they go?

[jcr]

The Government is allowed to regulate all kinds of speech.

Nope. See the bill of rights. The government is specificially enjoined from regulating speech, religion, and the press, with only a few exceptions that are frequently and vigorously litigated.

-jcr

Re:How low can they go?

[IgLou]

Nonsense. I'm just as entitled to say whatever I want whether I'm speaking for myself or my employer. If I lie, and it causes you some harm, then there's a whole body of tort law to deal with it. You missed what I'm trying to say. I'm not talking about what you may or may not say in a public blog about how things are going in your company or about what you say at a private party. I'm not saying I want people to always tell the truth. DUH, what you do privately of your own will is your business and I don't give a crap. But, if your company pays you do that by going into non-business situations and engage in some activity that promotes the company's, it's products or services then it's an advertisement. We can come up with all types of things to blur lines to work around the semantics (oh but what about the sales guy!). I'll still maintain that any person paid directly or indirectly or contractually held to say certain things for or about a company for the purpose of promoting that company in a context or medium that is not designated for the purpose of advertisement or sales. You could tell everyone "research it" or "file a lawsuit" but these things simply aren't practical. Once something is posted on the net it gets reposted, copy-pasted, forwarded, ad infinitum. To this day I still have people forwarding me that stupid Hoaxes that have been debunked long ago and take a look at the number of duplicate videos on youtube.

Let's recap. You a person, feel free to speak, write, blog as you will; I will defend that right to free speech. A company on the other hand, when it communicates is commercial speech and should be identified as such when it could be misconstruted as something that's not commercial speech or a press release, like a viral video. A persons rights are sacrement and businesses rights are whatever the public feels is appropriate for what the public needs at that time. If we (the public) say we need to regulate how a company conducts it's outgoing communications then it should get regulated by law. No changes to or amendments to presonal rights necessary.

Re:How low can they go?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

No problem:
Opinion::Opinion(Person p);

The implementation is left as an excercise to the reader.

Re:How low can they go?

[jcr]

You're shifting the goalposts: you didn't call for disclosure, you said that the government should regulate speech in a commercial context. Sorry, I'm not willing to hand over that power just because you're afraid you might be fooled by a lying huckster.

-jcr

Re:How low can they go?

[eh2o]

I don't think they are the same at all. Corporations have a plethora of legal protections that afford its members a position of power, and that power needs regulation. Furthermore, corporations have narrow interests -- specifically, to profit by conducting business. Business transactions are regulated by contract law. But, since a corporation exists *only* for the purpose of engaging in contracts, it raises the question, what part of corporate speech is *not* covered by contract law? For example, in determining a case of misrepresentation, statements of opinion are generally not considered. But a corporation is a fictional entity. It does not have opinions, so why should we protect its ability to state them?

People have diverse interests and needs, corporations (and people while acting on their behalf) do not.

Re:How low can they go?

[aussie_a]

If it's a fraudulent claim, sure, that should be illegal, So you're saying I can't lie to my wife anymore? Wow. I certainly hope you never get in a position where you have undue sway over the law.

Re:How low can they go?

[aussie_a]

Great. I hope when your father dies someone knocks on your mother's door claiming that he had bought a bible for her birthday and had one more payment left. Then we'll talk about whether or not people should be protected via the law from lying hucksters.

Re:How low can they go?

[CalSolt]

Has anyone ever wondered if any companies modify Wikipedia articles about themselves, their products, or their competitors?

Re:How low can they go?

[indifferent children]

you didn't call for disclosure, you said that the government should regulate speech in a commercial context

The government requiring disclosures on certain kinds of speech is regulating speech. It is a rather mild form of regulation, but it is regulation.

Re:How low can they go?

[bogado]

Well, the government can simply abolish this so called bill of rights and regulate those anyway. Govern, by definition, has the power to do what it wants, if it does over do it people will be unsatisfied and may (or may not) revolt and overthrow it, replacing it with another govern with different goals and directives.

What I don't see is why people don't trust the govern to cut corporation power. Every time anyone says that corporations should be regulated there are a lot of people that complains and say that "the market" will regulate them, too bad they already control it to an extent where they don't need to worry about this power of controlling. Sure I can boycott Sony for their, many, blunders and attacks to their customers, but even if I could (and I can't) convince all my friends to do the same do you think I done even a dent on it's reputation? No, people don't even know that there was a root-kit, much less what a root-kit is, they don't know that they are using this disgusting "pseudo viral marketing" campaigns, and people will still buy PSPs, CDs, playstations and whatever Sony throw in the market.

The worst part is that those same enterprises are already exerting power over many governments around the world, just count how many copyrights acts are being passed all over the places and yet many people defend the corporation and say that they should continue their power escalation. I am not sure that it is even possible to revert this picture now, but I will not defend them, I believe that corporations, specially large ones, are a type of government that have a growing area of influence and as such they must have the same social obligations that governs have.

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here?

Re:How low can they go?

[Fred_A]

No, I think pretty much everyone assumes they do...

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhh. Stop using logic. This is an emotional argument.

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. A person can be "true".

Re:How low can they go?

[freeweed]

The fact that anyone in their right mind could imagine tea being anything BUT organic demonstrates quite clearly that telling the truth is already not allowed.

Re:How low can they go?

[inviolet]

Nope. See the bill of rights. The government is specificially enjoined from regulating speech, religion, and the press, with only a few exceptions that are frequently and vigorously litigated.

No matter what anybody's constitution says, the very purpose of government is to defend individuals from force and fraud (fraud being a derivative of force). This is the only thing that everyone needs a government for. This is so because market mechanisms (i.e. freedom of association) cannot cope with force and fraud, short of open violence.

All other government activities are secondary, and usually optional, and for that reason usually inefficient compared to a market mechanism.

When speech constitutes fraud, for example a bogus spec sheet for a product being sold, then it automatically becomes the jurisdiction of the government.

Re:How low can they go?

[nasch]

Um... not sure what to make of your post. Reminding you of something that doesn't contradict your post is exactly what I was doing. I assume your thanks are sarcastic, but I don't see the problem with doing that. I never stated you were wrong, and in fact made it explicitly clear that I was not saying you're wrong. I never said anything about logical consistency. And I really have no idea how stating that your opinions differ from those of the Supreme Court is showing off. But maybe you just like taking offense, I don't know.

Re:How low can they go?

[jahudabudy]

I've always wondered, if money is a protected form of speech, then why is it illegal for me to "talk" a hooker into having sex with me?

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, there is nothing in the Constitution that states that advertising must be tax deductable. Indeed, I don't think I can take out an ad stating my opinion of the President, for example, and deduct it from my taxes. Although, if I sell bumper stickers stating a positive or negative opinion, I can deduct those advertising costs. IANAL, so let me know if I'm wrong.

Re:How low can they go?

[jcr]

I hope when your father dies someone knocks on your mother's door claiming that he had bought a bible for her birthday and had one more payment left.

I don't know how gullible your mother is, but mine is quite aware that my father has been an atheist all his life.

-jcr

Re:How low can they go?

[Anonymous Coward]

buyer beware

Re:How low can they go?

[GaryPatterson]

Classy, so classy.

Astroturfing

[duerra]

It already has a name. It's called Astroturfing.

Now we need to come up with a term for what will eventually prove to be its opposite. Corporate sabotage that seeks to inspire negative propoganda for another company. If Sony hadn't been repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot with a sawed-off 12 gauge lately and inspiring all their own negative publicity, I'd almost suspect that of their vomit-inducing attempt at creating buzz for the PSP.

Re:Astroturfing

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Speaking of that sorry psp astroturfing site, did you see the last entry?


Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.

Sony Computer Entertainment America


Well, I must say, as much as I despite Sony these days, it takes balls to come clean and coldly admit to trying to con people, instead of simply pulling the plug on the site. Hats off Sony, for once you did the right thing.

Re:Astroturfing

[HTH NE1]

It already has a name. It's called Astroturfing.

Now we need to come up with a term for what will eventually prove to be its opposite: corporate sabotage that seeks to inspire negative propoganda for another company.

Sodium tetrasulfating?

Re:Astroturfing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It was no accident that site was 'discovered' as fake. How easy would it be for someone to use a privacy service on their registration? Personally, I think it worked very well - that site got more traffic than it ever would have if it had been legit.

Re:Astroturfing

[pimpimpim]

Well, at least viral marketing can be killed instantly by the negative karma that comes about when the blatant lies of this being an 'enthusiast's user opinion' are uncovered. I really like that aspect of viral marketing, the message will be accepted if the cooperation is fair about it, and just couldn't use original channels for an advertisment (for example a car advertizement that would be too shocking to show on TV, but is artistically interesting anyway.).

However, if the cooperation is trying to screw us, and someone finds out (as will eventually happen anyway), the viral marketing works just as viral against the cooperation that started it. Therefore, viral marketing is playing with fire!

All in all this must be the most fair form of advertizing, we the users can directly respons to it and decide if we like it or not.

Re:Astroturfing

[ShieldW0lf]

If I followed you around all day long whispering that you'd be sexy if you had that car, but you don't, so you're not, and that you'd be rich if you went with that accounting firm, but you don't, so you're not...

If I followed you around telling you that you suck because you don't own this stuff, that you suck because you don't look like this...

If I did it for days and months and years...

Would it have an effect on you?

Advertisers use invasive propaganda tactics to try to make you unhappy with your life for no good reason at all, and present themselves as the only ones who can make it better, but they never make it better even if you buy their product.

Advertising is an assault. And it uses scientific methodology to become ever more effective at making you and everyone else do stupid wasteful things for irrational reasons.

The answer is really simple.

Advertising is evil, and shouldn't be permitted.

It doesn't generate any raw materials, it doesn't generate any finished products, it doesn't generate any new ideas for how to do things, it doesn't have any redeeming merit whatsoever.

In making the public aware of what is available to them, it doesn't serve any higher societal good than a global registrar of products and distributers aka the yellow pages would accomplish, and it does a good deal more harm.

Just say no to advertising and advertised goods and services.

Re:Astroturfing

[Spaceman40]

[There] is such a thing as bad press... -- Tycho

The publicity they're getting is bad for the PSP and the advertising company both. On the one hand, people know it's fake, and it's pathetic to have to pretend to have friends (which is what astroturfing is, at its roots). On the other hand, if they get bad press for their client, that's bad press for themselves. Who wants to hire an agency who gave someone bad press?

Re:Astroturfing

[nine-times]

Now we need to come up with a term for what will eventually prove to be its opposite. Corporate sabotage that seeks to inspire negative propoganda for another company.

Wouldn't this, too, be astroturfing? Astroturfing, I thought, was any fake grassroots campaign, negative or positive.

Re:Astroturfing

[AlHunt]

>Now we need to come up with a term for what will eventually prove to be its opposite.

Maybe we need to come up with a name for government sticking it's fat nose into anything and everything.

Re:Astroturfing

[ShieldW0lf]

If we all stop trusting each other, and keep it in the back of our minds that everyone we talk to might be trying to decieve and manipulate us for some third parties benefit, then we'll be ok.

Seriously, this sort of thing should be punished by summary execution. It's a huge assault on the very fabric of our society, trying to create a world where we're afraid to participate with our neighbour with trust.

It's not the little thing you're trying to make it out to be. People that perpetuate this sort of thign should be shot in the head and buried in a shallow unmarked grave.

Re:Astroturfing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

In advertising, any press is good press. It's about name recognition -- at least that's what friends in the business have told me.

Re:Astroturfing

[HTH NE1]

Just say no to advertising and advertised goods and services.

OK, so I'll just go by word of mouth then.

Wait a minute....

Re:Astroturfing

[Spaceman40]

That's what I hear, too. I think it's more a rule of thumb, though -- with exceptions.

Not to invoke Godwin's law, but Hitler has a bunch of name recognition, and I doubt anyone would consider it good publicity.

Re:Astroturfing

[EzraSj]

In advertising, any press is good press. It's about name recognition -- at least that's what friends in the business have told me.

Sony already has name recognition. Name recognition is not what they're trying to get here, what they're trying to get is positive association - and they've gotten the exact opposite.

Re:Astroturfing

[HTH NE1]

In advertising, any press is good press. It's about name recognition -- at least that's what friends in the business have told me.

Sure. Why just be famous when you can be infamous with a plethora of free publicity?

Re:Astroturfing

[Turken]

Now we need to come up with a term for what will eventually prove to be its opposite. Corporate sabotage that seeks to inspire negative propoganda for another company.

How about "Astroturding"?

Re:Astroturfing

[nomadic]

If we all stop trusting each other, and keep it in the back of our minds that everyone we talk to might be trying to decieve and manipulate us for some third parties benefit, then we'll be ok.

Hey, I'm from New York, I already do that.

Re:Astroturfing

[mfrank]

The alternative to advertising is paying more for things. No ads on TV, you'll have to get cable and the basic cable rates would be higher. Don't even ask how much a magazine or a newspaper would cost; the subscription price for a newspaper doesn't even pay for the newsprint, let alone ink and payroll. I've no interest in paying more because other people think drinking Bud will make the ladies like them.

A better solution would be to teach children how to think critically, but that's not gonna happen.

Re:Astroturfing

[boyko.at.netqos]

The Sistine Chapel is an advertisement for the Roman Catholic Church.

I agree with many of your points; but calling for the abolishment of any type of speech (even commercial speech) is a road we dare not walk down.

The problem is that of transparency and honesty; I have no problem with an advertisement that honestly states what the solution to a problem you have is (although there's a grey area - see Freakonomics of how Listerine "invented" halitosis in America.)

In the end, my big concern is that advertising works because it appeals to the "reptilian hind-brain" of people. If you want to stop advertising's ill effects, start producing smarter people!

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen, brother. Marketing, while on the face of it appears to be a natural organism of capitalism, is actually an out of control cancer. While capitalism supposes that consumers make informed decisions and have the requisite information to do so, marketing deliberately sows confusion and murkiness. Marketing produces irrational behavior, which clever leeches can game and manipulate to gain revenue they otherwise might not get on their own merits. It is a flat out waste of energy as industries wage wars back and forth for the same share of consumer spending.. which could be noble, if it was producing more accurate valuation and decisionmaking in the long run--but it is not. All it does is agitate consumers and make them run about full title dazed and confused.

Re:Astroturfing

[cptgrudge]

I'd be willing to bet that most people in the demographic they were aiming this for know what a PSP is already. I was halfway thinking of getting a PS3, but all these little things continue to turn me off to it. The chances of me purchasing a PS3 are closing in on the chances of me buying a PSP - that is to say, No Chance.

In the end, this isn't just some "bad press" I'm hearing about; I've been insulted. Sony seems to think that the demographic of people that will buy their PSP product, of which I'm a part, is both illiterate and unable to spell properly. Granted, Sony hasn't insulted me personally, but doing this has nonetheless lowered my view of them even further.

They have sacrificed their target demographic's goodwill for gaining a token amount of mindshare outside of the demographic. And the thoughts associated with that mindshare may be: "Golly, those gamers sure are pissed at Sony. Maybe I'll get little Timmy a DS instead of a PSP."

Re:Astroturfing

[Clever7Devil]

The Sistine Chapel is an advertisement for the Roman Catholic Church

God help us if 500 years from now our descendents are marveling at TV commercials in the National Madison Avenue Archives.

"Look at the lighting. Do you see how the camera man caught the grace of Britney Spears reaching for that Coke?"

Re:Astroturfing

[Lord_Dweomer]

Advertising is evil, and shouldn't be permitted.

Spoken like someone who has ZERO clue what advertising is actually all about. Every industry has its evil people who give the rest a bad name and advertising is no different, but that certainly does not mean the entire industry is evil. Of course such a logical point would still probably get modded down in this discussion.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

In an era when virtually all goods and services are completely interchangeable,
the only possible form of competition occurs through advertising.

Example: All brands of distilled water are exactly the same. Why should the
consumer buy Brand X as opposed to Brand Y? Since everything is the same,
no rational distinction is possible and only advertising can potentially
influence consumer choice.

Another example: All dry cleaners can only offer a service that is essentially
identical to any other. Why should the consumer choose to patronize one particular
dry cleaner as opposed to another? Again, when everything else is the same,
only advertising can create the necessary (and often irrational) difference.

In our capitalist culture, such an absurdity is perfectly inevitable.

Re:Astroturfing

[letxa2000]

Depends on your definition of "good publicity." I bet Hitler had (and probably still has) more followers than either you or me.

Re:Astroturfing

[ml10422]

Fair enough. You've covered the evils of advertising. The other side of the story is that advertising is how we find out about what goods and services are available to us; advertising is sometimes very entertaining; and advertising pays for a lot of stuff that we all get for "free".

Re:Astroturfing

[letxa2000]

Seriously, this sort of thing should be punished by summary execution. It's a huge assault on the very fabric of our society, trying to create a world where we're afraid to participate with our neighbour with trust.

Huh? Sony did some viral advertising so now you can't trust your neighbor? Really? Are you kidding? Heck, do you have a neighbor? Do you know his or her name?

Re:Astroturfing

[N3Roaster]

God help us if 500 years from now our descendents are marveling at TV commercials in the National Madison Avenue Archives.

Why wait 500 years when you can go here now?

Re:Astroturfing

[meta-monkey]

Michael Richards, is that you?!

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird, I seem to be immune to this evil called advertising. Just kind of laugh it off. Then again, I actually take the responsibility to think for myself. I believe that each human being is not only capable of this feat, but that our species has evolved so far only because of this key human trait. I also believe that each individual is 100% responsible for his own actions, and no less. I hope you aren't offended when I say that I resent the fact that my earnings are being taken from me, by force, in order to fund such "investigations" into what doesn't qualify as coercion, i.e. a violation of the zero-agression principle. At the end of the day, you still make the choice to purchase a product -- only you are in control of your own mind, not me.

Re:Astroturfing

[spun]

You know, I say the same thing about my industry, the baby torturing industry. Sure, there may be some evil people in the baby torturing industry but most of us are decent hard working Americans just like you.

Seriously, advertising as an industry has no redeeming qualities. It consumes resources and produces nothing of value. It convinces people to do or buy things they wouldn't have if they thought about it rationally, and it does this through deceit and making people feel insecure. It's not quite as bad as baby torturing, but it certainly isn't something any decent, moral human being would ever want to do.

Let me guess, you're in advertising? If so, why don't you take some advice from comedian Bill Hicks?

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously.

No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke"... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?"

And to that let me add: anyone in the business of mind control, I hope you get some horrible disease and die a painful death. As Bill said, there is no excuse for what you do.

Re:Astroturfing

[Spaceman40]

Truth. The entire discussion really depends on what we mean by "good." I'm working under the assumption that to a marketing company, publicity is a resource that you trade for cash, and any publicity that isn't valuable like that is bad publicity. Sure, your name will be out there. Out there on the lists of marketing companies that one shouldn't use, or products that one shouldn't buy.

Perhaps Hitler was a poor example, because there are people out there who agree with what he represented. I guess that being in this [self-righteous] community has given me a different opinion of marketing if only because we have such vocal detractors of its dishonest forms. People all over these boards said that they're boycotting Sony post-DRM debacle, etc.

Now I'm jaded again. I concede -- there are probably people out there who think that fake grassroots support is a great idea, and it might even pull in a lot of customers. Shame, though.

Re:Astroturfing

[amRadioHed]

And yet if he were alive today, he'd probably need a bigger security detail than even George W. Bush to keep himself safe.

Re:Astroturfing

[HTH NE1]

God help us if 500 years from now our descendants are marveling at TV commercials in the National Madison Avenue Archives.

"I've seen the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiener."

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

Sodium tetrasulfating?

I guess that proves it: obscure references to The Simpsons on Slashdot just aren't considered Funny anymore.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the wording of the previous "entries" was a dead giveaway. Real geeks wouldn't speak like this. This reminds me of when rich kids in the suburbs would try to imitate the inner city hip-hop culture,
and is no less pathetic.

Re:Astroturfing

[ScentCone]

Advertising is evil, and shouldn't be permitted.

Whew.

OK, so now that we're all back to having to tell each other what building downtown contains what businesses (since, I presume, you wouldn't even want the Yellow Pages to exist)...

How does your local farmer communicate the fact that, this week, he's got some really nice radishes? Let's see... he can't put up a sign (eeeek! advertising!). He can't stand on the corner and fill you in on his inventory for the week (gaaah! advertising!)... no, he has to wait for everyone to call HIM and ask what he's got, right? What if he suddenly has to pony up for a new tractor transmission (um, assuming that he's actually aware of where to shop for one at a good price, since no one in that line of work is allowed to advertise, right?), so he's interested in quickly generating customers for a bunch of his produce at a better than usual price. Of course, you wouldn't want him to be able to actually tell anyone that they're able to save some money, this week, by doing business with him, would you?

No point bothering with more of this. I'm sorry that you're so unable to exercise critical thinking in the marketplace. I'm sorry that you think it's better to outlaw communication about goods and services than it is to expect parents to teach their kids how to prioritize a little bit, or critically evaluate something that's being said to them. Those skills will also help them when evaluating other pitches. Say, from politicians that are trying to sell them on the notion that, if elected, they'll save them from their own inability not to buy things, by outlawing advertising. Sweet, sweet irony. Nice to hear from you, though, here on advertising-supported slashdot.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry if your too stupid to discern for yourself the relative merits of products.

I on the other hand am perfectly willing to endure these messages if advertisers want to subsidize my entertainment costs.

Strangely, I have this organ between my ears that allows me to make my own decisions regarding products...even in the face of contradicting opinions from some random guy that I don't know.

Oh look, that same organ just informed me that your post is a load of crap and can be safely ignored...

BTW..Slashdot doesn't generate any finished product. God knows it doesn't generate any new ideas. I suppose you believe it should be banned as well?

Re:Astroturfing

[ratboy666]

"advertising pays for a lot of stuff that we all get for "free"."

The person selling the product pays an advertiser. So much, in fact, that the distribution media becomes free -- in the sense that it can carry "non advertising" material. That's what you mean, yes?

But, nothing is "free". The cost of the entire thing had to be absorbed. The advertiser is making a profit, the distribution media producer is making a profit -- where did it all come from? That's right; increased cost to the buyer. Buy something that is "advertised" and you subsidize all that "free stuff".

How about having a price reduction, returning the price of the media BACK to the buyer. We need the same things; but would now have leverage in choosing the "non advertising" content. Plus, there would be a savings -- no more advertiser to pay for.

And, I wouldn't eliminate "advertising", Sometimes its useful. But, it should be in specifically sought-out areas (similar to yellow pages). And it should be "free" in the sense that the non-advertising content is today. Kick a little bit of the money being paid for the content to build the list.

Or is this entirely too radical?

Ratboy

Re:Astroturfing

[dave562]

Advertisers use invasive propaganda tactics to try to make you unhappy with your life for no good reason at all, and present themselves as the only ones who can make it better, but they never make it better even if you buy their product. Advertising is an assault. And it uses scientific methodology to become ever more effective at making you and everyone else do stupid wasteful things for irrational reasons.

I agree with what you have to say here. I cancelled my subscription to Maxim magazine a few years ago because although I subscribed to have hot chicks delivered to my door, I realized that the whole thing from cover to cover was just selling products. They were selling a lifestyle. They were selling the perception that in order to have X you should buy Y.

I noticed it, but I also spent a lot of time studying NLP and the art of persuasion. I became tuned into the various devices used by advertisers. Unfortunately not everyone has the same sort of experience. If you tell the average Joe that the advertisement for medication is placed directly after the page with an image of a hot girl dressed like a slutty nurse because it will make them more inclined to think about doctors and medicine in a favorable light, that average Joe will laugh and call you a conspiracy nut.

Re:Astroturfing

[dave562]

Another example: All dry cleaners can only offer a service that is essentially identical to any other. Why should the consumer choose to patronize one particular dry cleaner as opposed to another? Again, when everything else is the same, only advertising can create the necessary (and often irrational) difference.

This one is way too easy. There are enough vagarities in the dry cleaning business to differentiate them. Often times there are numerous dry cleaners within a very short distance of someone's house. If one dry cleaner doesn't do a good job, you can go to another one. The dry cleaners compete on quality of service and also on price.

I've heard it said many times that you only really "hear" a commercial if you're actually in the market for the product being advertised. In any other case, the advertisement is just background noise in an already noisy life.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly do you equate corporate sabotage (like, say, releasing fake "leaked" documents or killing a million people) with astroturfing?

Re:Astroturfing

[jelaludo]

Funny stand-up comedy on the subject; Bill Hicks asking advertising and marketing folks to just kill themselves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

Re:Astroturfing

[ShieldW0lf]

In making the public aware of what is available to them, it doesn't serve any higher societal good than a global registrar of products and distributers aka the yellow pages would accomplish, and it does a good deal more harm.

Do you know how to read?

The point is that a global registrar, aka the yellow pages, in real time, with no flashy larger adverts available, just the facts with the option to delve further into relevant op-ed pieces is all that would be needed to find goods and services, and that if we as a global society should create one and use it, we could outlaw invasive advertising entirely and not be forced to accept this assault on our senses and our childrens senses.

There are people out there with less than stellar critical thinking skills, and it doesn't benefit the smarter, more critical minded of us to have those who are less capable acting contrary to their individual and our mutual welfare.

Just because you can (supposedly) see through these machinations doesn't mean it's in your best interest to allow those who can't see through them to be systematically fleeced by crazy-makers.

And as for slashdot being ad-supported, do you really think they wouldn't love a re-structuring of economic systems that allowed them to do what they do without having to concern themselves with that shit?

Millions of people read slashdot globally, mute evidence that there are huge market forces there that would reach an equilibrium that caused slashdot to exist even if advertising wasn't there to fill the niche.

You think they'd just say "Oh well, there's no advertising anymore, so we can't support slashdot. I mean, global productivity is up because I'm not indirectly paying people to do crazy making anymore, and they're either doing something else that is tangibly productive or at least less harmful, and everyone else around me is acting smarter now and now they have more tangible wealth than they did before too, but amidst all this increased wealth, we somehow can no longer as a society afford to support these things that we used to be able to support back when we were collectively poorer and stupider."

They wouldn't. They'd self-organize to unite their increased collective power and support more cultural works like slashdot etc than they do now. That's what people do.

As for the radish farmer, he can log onto GlobalYellowPages.com and make it publicly available knowledge that he has extra radishes, and if I am interested in knowing what extra cheap shit is available today, I'll go look it up or register to have it sent to me regularly. If I don't go looking for it, then he can fuck right off, it's not his place to shove his way into my home via radio, satellite, cable, telephone, flyer, banner advert, spam or any other means to tell me about his radishes.

I have the right to not give a flying fuck about radishes. Being that in my current employment, as in at this moment, the software I write each day from my home tangibly helps everyone around the world by facilitating access to medicine, you would be tangibly better off if I didn't have to deal with radish merchants trying to distract me all the time and could concentrate on what I'm doing.

Full stop, distracting me from my leisure and making it less rejuvinating for me as an individual by bombarding me with advertisements means I'm less effective at making your world a better place, and I'm a smart conciencious guy who cares about society and his work so, I would argue, out of a case of enlightened self interest, you should want me and the billions who are or could be like me left alone by these people.

But my girlfriend would want to see it all organized into an RSS feed, she's like that, always getting bargains. So she would actively pursue this knowledge and probably go buy the guys radishes, and he wouldn't even have to pay for this inefficient mass-market advertising.

It's not the radish farmers that need advertising. It's the con-artists trying to convince you that you need something when you don't, or that their product is better than another when it really isn't that need advertising.

Re:Astroturfing

[lysdexia]

Alfalfa: "Hey fellers! Let's turn this old mac plus into a reputation server!"

Spanky: "Oh Boy!"

BuckWheat: "Oh-Tay"

Mickey: "I don't like that idea at all. Sometimes people jump to conclusions ..."

Darla: "Oh you nasty man."

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

"We're totally not going to be trying to do this again, so don't be on the lookout or anything. Nope, we're just going to keep trying to make great products. Yep, Nothing to see here, folks."

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

here here! comrad!

Re:Astroturfing

[merkhet]

"Advertising is an assault. And it uses scientific methodology to become ever more effective at making you and everyone else do stupid wasteful things for irrational reasons."

I may have missed your point -- but exactly how does advertising "make" you do anything? Who cares if someone follows you around all day and tells you to do something? If you end up doing it, you chose to do it. If you don't want to do it, don't. And if the person following you around all day telling you to do these things is annoying you, punch them in the face. (metaphorically, of course)

Yes, it's "bad" that advertising is taking advantage of someone's weakness for persuasion. But perhaps the fix isn't to regulate advertising, but rather ask people to develop just a modicum of willpower? And perhaps, just maybe, paternalism is just as bad as opportunism?

Re:Astroturfing

[Goaway]

The alternative to advertising is paying more for things.

More for some things, less for others. In the final tally, you'll end up ahead when there are no marketers to feed.

Re:Astroturfing

[Goaway]

Are you also perfectly willing to pay for all those marketing people who did nothing that was of any value to you when you actually buy a product?

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

If the total sale of goods and services is reduced because of reduced buyer knowledge, it seems to me that everything will become more expensive because of the reduction in economies of scale which allow goods to be mass-produced and sold to many markets.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

Advertising is necessary, to be sure, but cases like this push the limit, in my view. You know who used fake grassroots movements to promote themselves? The Soviets under Stalin,

What we really need is for advertising to come in moderation. Without it, our economy collapses. With too much of it though, you can't even trust that the guy arguing with you isn't a paid stooge. I don't want to live in a world where I have to guess what products and services might somewhere be available. But infinitely more than that. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is an actor, and I can't even trust that people around me are actually speaking their own opinions. If FCC regulations will eliminate the deceptive practice of pretending to be someone who sincerely likes the product, I'm for it.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

Far more worrisome is how this type of marketing is poisoning public discourse. For example, how do I know that you're not just a paid stooge? Everything you're writing, everything you claim to be a deeply held belief, could be a lie.

Forget about choice for a minute, and ask yourself if living in a world where you can't even say with any certainty that the people around you aren't just paid actors trying to sell you shit. I think that would be the point where I lose it.

Re:Astroturfing

[Triv]

Are you also perfectly willing to pay for all those marketing people who did nothing that was of any value to you when you actually buy a product?

Well, you could make the argument that without the marketers you wouldn't know about whatever it is you just bought in the first place. The idea of a services directory is interesting, but flawed because it isn't anywhere near passive enough to be accepted by people. With a television spot, all you need to do is watch and, essentially, decide whether you believe what they're telling you or not. With a list you need to go looking for things, and that's more effort than most people are willing to put in.

Triv

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure there are disclosure laws for paid advertising EVEN when people try to make it NOT look like advertising. If you ask someone, "are you being paid to advertise X" then they will have to admit that they are.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

But he's got huge power in the market. "Oh, I love Jew brand soap!" BAM. No more Jew brand soap. I mean, who would buy Jew brand soap that Hitler endorses? And you know what? It's actually made by Jon Stewart in his basement. That's right, Jew brand soap was actually made by Jews, and Hitler managed to fuck it up. That's marketing power.

Re:Astroturfing

[Goaway]

Well, you could make the argument that without the marketers you wouldn't know about whatever it is you just bought in the first place.

Somehow, I think I would survive.

Re:Astroturfing

[mike27112]

If we all stop trusting each other, and keep it in the back of our minds that everyone we talk to might be trying to decieve and manipulate us ...
I imagine this is the same problem that hot girls face every time they go out to a bar or a club.

In a sense, viral marketing is like the advertiser's equivalent to alcohol. It may be ineffective and overpriced, but he'll keep on using it as long as it helps him score every once in a while.

Re:Astroturfing

[ScentCone]

You know who used fake grassroots movements to promote themselves? The Soviets under Stalin,

Yup, it's a favorite among the professional activist types, too. They go to a lot of trouble to try to create the illusion that everyone holding the nicely lettered signs at the anti-globalization protest appears to have just shown up on their own.

I think the solution to cheesy advertising will always be to have smarter consumers. And when someone actally perpetrates fraud, make it very very public.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

As opposed to advertising companies who think that exposing you to their work every second from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep at night isn't enough, so they've got to lie their way into conversations and websites?

Neither government nor corporations are the ultimate power, neither should be given free reign at the expense of the other. What we need is some fucking sanity, and a good start would be getting rid of this practice. Fake testimonials need to be told about in print and on the radio and on TV, why are they acceptable in real life?

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

How can you be a well-informed consumer when half the groups that claim to be able to give you reasonable information are paid husks of marketing companies? It's like the discussion on global warming. Half the participants on both sides are just paid actors pretending to represent their cause.

Re:Astroturfing

[merkhet]

While I am sympathetic to your view here, the problem is that in "fixing" the "poisoning" of public discourse, you're trading disillusionment for complacent self-delusion.

The unfailing truth is that you can never really trust anyone. All you have to go on is whether they've lied to you in the past and your own gut feeling. I certainly hope that people are not naive enough to think that a person who has never lied to you before will therefore never lie to you in the future. And lets not even get into the ability for a person to just "know" in their gut when a person is lying.

While choice does put us in a predicament where we force individuals to truly consider the "trustworthiness" of the individuals with which they're interacting, it has the added benefit of forcing people to face reality.

Re:Astroturfing

[Xybot]

Parent is either a paid Negative Astroturfing Viral Marketer, or the first of the new breed of paid Reverse Psych Negative Astroturfing Viral Marketers. Either way you're all out to get me

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

By the same argument, cigarette companies should still be allowed to market their product as not just safe, but healthy -- or uranium infused water, for that matter. In my opinion, there is a reasonable level which trust should be actively enforced when you're talking about companies, to protect the public from dangerous or manipulative lies.

By the way, how can I know that you're even a real person? Odds are all these free speech parroting UIDs are just actors(or one actor) paid for by marketing firms. Go to hell, astroturfer! Your argument won't get an seconds consideration from me, regardless of merits, lest I fall into your deceptive trap!

Re:Astroturfing

[ScentCone]

How can you be a well-informed consumer when half the groups that claim to be able to give you reasonable information are paid husks of marketing companies?

Half?

Well, never mind whether that's even close to accurate. The solution is simple: let the market itself sort that out. One solution has been around for decades: Consumer Reports.

And, moderation systems with adequate oversight will evolve to support communities (like here) where reputation can be worth something. But we've all developed our own sense of who we trust for insight or advice. Is it really necessary to pass laws on this subject?

Re:Astroturfing

[jcr]

If I followed you around all day long

You'd find out what a restraining order is.

Advertising is evil, and shouldn't be permitted.

Oh, fuck off and move to Cuba.

-jcr

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

The laws already exist. Do you know why article-like advertisements are labelled as advertisements, or why paid actors in TV commercials who are pretending to be legitimate referrals are designated as such? The same reason why these trash who want to destroy public discourse for a few years of easy marketing are now being investigated now.

Re:Astroturfing

[ShieldW0lf]

Given the choice between moving to the US or to Cuba, I would most certainly choose Cuba. In a heartbeat.

As it stands, I think I'll stay where I am and work towards propagating better economic structures that empower people and render those who think the way you do as ostracised and powerless as I can manage until you get your head out of your ass and decide to play ball with the rest of us or die poor and powerless first.

Personally, I'm the kind of insensitive son of a bitch that could give a flying fuck which way that goes for you, but I'm still going to work towards a system that has a place for you and yours in it anyways.

Re:Astroturfing

[Scrameustache]

Advertising is evil, and shouldn't be permitted. Advertising lets me know that things that interest me exist. Such as new film festivals, and the like.

Advertising should be tightly regulated, though.

Re:Astroturfing

[AlHunt]

>As opposed to advertising companies who think that exposing you to their work every second
>from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep at night

Government has better things to do than investigate advertisers. There are plenty of groups willing to ferret out myths, lies and even viral marketers (snopes.com, consumer reports to name a couple). We really don't need to over-pay a bunch of fat-headed politicians to sit around mahogany lined rooms harrumphing about viral-marketing. Maybe they could expend a little of that indignation on energy problems, abuses of eminent domain, figuring out how to quell the mess they've made in the middle east or possibly they could attend classes to learn that the page and intern programs are *not* dating services for lonely politicians.

I don't know - just kinda seems like their priorities are a little screwed up.

Re:Astroturfing

[wasteve]

Maybe you would pay more for TV and cable but I think you'd also pay less for the products that are currently advertised. If companies put their advertising budgets into lowering prices I suspect many products would be a lot cheaper. I believe that something like 15% of the price of a textbook is advertising expenses, and I've heard its also quite high for new drugs. As an example of a company that did choose to not advertise take Amazon.com. They chose instead to offer free shipping with the money that they had considered putting into advertising. I know I prefer it that way.

Re:Astroturfing

[drsquare]

So you're saying that business and consumers around the world should suffer because you're too fucking dumb to work out whether someone's advertising something or not? I don't see why the whole world of commerce should change just to pander to a few retards.

The problem would be easier solved by putting up a billboard saying that throwing yourself off a bridge makes your car go faster. All the people who can't work out what an advert is disappear, and the rest of us who actually have more than five brain cells can get back to our daily lives unhindered by your idiocy.

Re:Astroturfing

[jcr]

Given the choice between moving to the US or to Cuba, I would most certainly choose Cuba. In a heartbeat.

Wow. Do you actually believe that anyone in Cuba besides Castro and his band of thugs are "empowered" in any way at all?

until you get your head out of your ass

Oh, that's priceless... You would choose one of the last two Stalinist dictatorships on earth over the USA, and you think I'm the one with his head up his ass?

Man, I love you pinkos. The greatest comedy writers on earth couldn't make this stuff up.

-jcr

Re:Astroturfing

[jcr]

Spoken like someone who has ZERO clue what advertising is actually all about.

Oh, advertising is the least of the things he doesn't understand...

-jcr

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

You have just compared advertising to baby torturing. You have qualified for a free PERSPECTIVE CHECK. *BONK*

Re:Astroturfing

[Triv]

I'm sure you think that you'd be fine. It's the lives of the millions of employees who depend on people purchasing things to survive that'll be a problem - stop advertising cars and people stop buying cars. What do you think Ford's gonna do when the cash from car sales trickles down to nothing? Even if they reinvent themselves as some other kind of company (though what kind exactly is hard to guess at seeing as how they wouldn't be able to tell people about it, at least not efficiently) I somehow think it'd be hard to teach a couple hundred thousand close-to-retirement Old Dogs who know nothing but how to work a spot welder on an assembly line anything CLOSE to a New Trick.

There is such a thing as morally responsible advertising, you know, and stricter limits on false and deceptive advertising MIGHT be a good thing to consider, but eliminating it entirely is a really bad idea.

Triv

Re:Astroturfing

[HiRoll3r]

And we all know that traffic=sales.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

You're telling me I wouldn't have bought something if it wasn't for advertising, you insensitive clod?

Seriously, learn to take other people more seriously, please; grow up. Advertising in informational (it informs you that a product exists) and tries to show you in a nicey, shiny way how GREAT that product is. Sure, you shoudn't believe anything they say, but that isn't to say that advertising is inherently evil.

Re:Astroturfing

[ezeri]

Well, judging by the tone and content in his post, I would put him at about 15. He has the angry ignorant idealism of a teen, but didn't put any effort into trying to sound intelligent, as someone say 17-18 would. But he did include some "big" words, perhaps above the level of a middle schooler. So I'm putting my money on 15.

Re:Astroturfing

[Goaway]

My eyes are veritable lachrymal fountains when I consider their plight.

Re:Astroturfing

[LordKronos]

However, if the cooperation is trying to screw us, and someone finds out (as will eventually happen anyway), the viral marketing works just as viral against the cooperation that started it.

I disagree. In many cases where you have viral marketing, it gets written about in newspaper articles and talked about on TV news reports. Then, when a few of us online figure out what's going on, we all get angry and annoyed, but the 99% of people that read it in the paper or saw it on the news NEVER find out the truth about it. Sure, that 1% of us that figures it out can try and spread the word, but you know how that turns out.

Re:Astroturfing

[AntiDragon]

I pretty much agree. Although, playing devils advocate and all, advertising *is* useful if used right. I can live with the "Look, we've made something new, so I'm telling you it exists" type. But no, that's too easy - that leaves the final choice to me. So instead we get the "Look at me! I'm shiny! All the cool people have me! What? You don't? Ah, you just haven't got round to it yet...no? Why not? What's wrong with you? Why don't you want to be cool? Are you ill? Mentally deficient? My god, you must be the scum of the earth...." ego stroke/guilt trip/mind control type. I'm off to install a pop-up blocker into my frontal lobes....

Re:Astroturfing

[Lord_Dweomer]

As one of the other posters above me said, if you just compared advertising to baby-torturing you need a serious reality check. Without advertising, the masses would NEVER know about most of the helpful products in their lives. And I am not saying any one in particular, but I'm thinking about ma and pa out on the ranch, not you and me with the net at our fingertips.

And in terms of consuming resources and creating nothing of value...well, I'll let the fact that advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry and the share prices of the publicly held ad agencies do my talking for me.

And let me ask you about viral content that people find amusing and pass on to their friends. How does that stack up to say...baby-torturing. Providing entertainment is what good advertising is about. If there's a product message in there, who cares, you're free to ignore it as I frequently do. You don't HAVE to go out and buy a new Ford because a commercial of theirs made you laugh. Welcome to being a Slashbot. Make large sweeping generalizations about an industry you know absolutely NOTHING about (I can tell from the way you've written about it) and then when I have you backed into a corner go ahead and start spouting off Bill Hicks as if that suddenly lends some validation and credibility to your argument.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

And in terms of consuming resources and creating nothing of value...well, I'll let the fact that advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry and the share prices of the publicly held ad agencies do my talking for me.

And the mafia probably pulls in a lot of money from their business too. Does that mean that you like them? Or that you would hold shares if their actions were legal?

Re:Astroturfing

[spun]

If you can't tell a deliberate hyperbole from the use of the word "seriously," then you certainly shouldn't be in industry that makes use of such tropes. If the masses actually NEEDED products, they would find them. But advertising isn't about helping people find products they need, it is about making people want products they don't have.

The military-industrial complex is also a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Yet it adds nothing of value to human life. In fact it does just the opposite, taking all value from human lives by taking those lives. If there were no armies anywhere, there would be no need for armies. The child labor industry makes billions, too. Just because something is popular or highly valued does not mean it is useful in relieving human suffering.

Providing entertainment is NOT what good advertising is about. An ad that was entertaining but sold no products would be a miserable failure. Making people do things they otherwise wouldn't is what advertising is about. Marketers and advertisers create demand for products that, in a sane world, would fail. If advertising didn't work like black magic mind control, it wouldn't be a multi billion dollar a year industry.

Advertisers are like virus writers for the mind. The phrase 'viral marketing' is a dead giveaway. If you are an advertiser, you are a virus writer. You are scum who takes advantage of bugs in people's mental operating system.

I know very little about organized crime, either, but I know enough to know that I want no part of it and I wish it were gone. The thing about sweeping generalizations is, sometimes they are true.

You would have to have responded to me before this post in order to claim you had "backed me into a corner." That's just ludicrous. I can tell that you must have a great deal of cognitive dissonance going on in order to make a comment that nonsensical. Assumiung from your spirited but craftless defense of an indefensible industry, I'm guessing you are in advertising. The truth about what you do is fighting your fantasy inside your head, and it makes it hard to think. That is my only explanation as to why you would claim to have backed me into a corner when this was your first response to me.

Seriously, if you are in advertising your entire life is a waste. You have contributed nothing of value to humanity. You have fucked with people's heads for profit. You have studied human psychology not to heal minds, but to destroy them. You are scum and you need to either change or die. You need to learn that my response is not in fact over the top, but entirely appropriate given what you are and what you do.

Re:Astroturfing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Sony has name recognition, yes -- but PSP doesn't have nearly as much, especially among parents looking for gifts.

Re:Astroturfing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

If that's their target demographic, then yes. I don't believe that it is -- that web site looked to me like what a parent would expect a kid's web site to look like. /Not/ what one would actually look like.

Re:Astroturfing

[JackOfAllGeeks]

they would find them.

That's a false claim based on a false assumption. You don't need everything you consume. I don't need, for example, a high-end computer to play video games on. That's something I want, and something I'm able to have because of disposable income. If people only ever bought what they needed, there would be a much smaller economy. Further, even if someone needs something, that doesn't mean they'll find it. if they don't know it exists, if they don't know it could possibly exist, they don't even have a reason to go looking. And even if they DID go looking, if no one's saying, "hey, we made this thing, anyone want it?" then they have very little chance of stumbling upon it at random.

it is about making people want products they don't have.

That's a true claim. But... I don't know, it seems like stating the obvious. There's no point in making you want what you DO have. There's no point in making you NOT want what you don't have. And I guess there might be some very mall point in making you NOT want what you DO have, but that seems a little ridiculous. They make you want what you don't have because they have a product or serve they'd like to offer you; ideally, it's a product or service that would benefit you and that you wouldn't necessarily know about if they didn't tell you. Ideally, it's a win-win situation.

You're right, though, that the world isn't ideal. And you're right that ads often times appeal to the lowest common denominator, the need for humans to feel accepted or, perhaps more basic, sex. That's so that it appeals to a wider audience, turns more heads and, yes, sells more products. But I don't think you're really upset about businesses wanting to sell products. Expecting anything else -- what, wanting to NOT sell products? -- just seems unreasonable.

What you're upset with is either (1) a company selling a product it knows is cheep, dysfunctional, or useless or (2) someone being negatively effected by the direction of an add campaign. I don't know that (1) is really that much of a problem, not because it's not bad but because it's not prevalent. Most companies, IMO, believe they have something worthwhile to offer customers, if for no other reason that not doing so would end them by virtue of the free market. Vote with your feet and all that. (2) is more of a problem, but... Well, there are relatively few ads that say "you, yes you, on the couch. You suck. You're useless and un-liked and a failure. But this, and it will all be better." Instead they tend to be more positive, showing people being happy, getting the girl, making the swim team, whatever. If they hinge on insecurities, it's only through the knowledge that people *already* feel bad about their lives. they *already* feel lost, alone, and scared. And they'll see the ad, see the happy, positive implied results of Having, and they'll think, "hey, maybe THAT will make me happy."

This isn't a flaw in the ads. It's not Marketing telling you you suck. It's you believing you suck and buying into the idea that This Thing, or That Thing, will make you happy. It's a flaw in the viewer, not the viewed.

So, as others have said, I conclude that the solution to the problem you perceive is not ending adds, but making smarter people. Making people who can think critically, who can see what they have and why they feel the way they do, and who can make reasoned decisions on what it is they want, what they need, and what they can get.

At the VERY least, we need people who won't collapse under a negative-but-empty assault. If you followed me around for a year saying I suck, I might punch you in the face but I wouldn't base my self-worth on what you said.

Re:Astroturfing

[spun]

Let's look at the evidence. Listerine invented haslitosis. DeBeers invented the engagement ring. Hallmark invented Valentines day. Did anyone really worry about dandruff before Head & Shoulders started telling everyone they are undesireable if they have flakes? Advertisers and marketers create artificial demand for a product rather than just pointing people who already want a product towards a supplier. Do you dispute that?

As I said, advertisers exploit security holes in our mental operating systems. When people write computer viruses, we may blame Microsoft for making an insecure OS, but we also blame the people who exploit the situation.

In a free market, in every exchange both parties feel as though they have made a profit. But how is that profit split? Does most of it go to one side or the other? Advertisers and marketers try to create an artificial sense of value in a product, so people will spend more on it and still feel as if they were profiting. Advertisers do this by exploiting insecurites. They don't actually have to call people lazy and fat, that wouldn't be effective. Rather, they simply show people who are happy and succesful using a particular product.

You don't have to explicitly state that, if you use this product you will get lots of sex, or if you don't, you won't. People already feel they aren't getting something they need, advertising doesn't have to convince them of that. It just has to show people who are getting what they need, and create a mental connection to a product in the process. This makes people who aren't getting what they need feel that if they buy the product, they will get what they need. So they don't buy, say, a car because they need transportation, they buy a car because they want to feel desireable.

Desireability is the product they are buying, but feeling desireabile is something everyone could have for free. Making someone feel desireable costs nothing. Advertisers have a vested interest in making sure people do not feel desireable, happy, powerful, like they belong, or like they are useful and important parts of society. That is what they are selling, not actual tangible products, and if everyone felt those things, advertisers would be out of a job.

You want people to be smarter, but advertising actually makes people dumber. And making people smarter would end advertising. So we really want the same thing, smart self confident people and an end to advertising.

Finally, gertting back to a point you made earlier: there is a point in making people want what they have and not want what they don't have: it costs nothing and increases human satisfaction and happiness. Satisfied and happy people make better neighbors. There may not be a monetary profit to be made, but not all that is good can be measured in dollars.

The real problem I have with advertising is that there is so much real human suffering in the world. Advertising is a waste of effort. If everyone in advertising world wide worked instead on feeding and housing people, human suffering would be greatly reduced. Instead, advertisers create MORE suffering by exploiting people's weaknesses.

Most products in existence are surrogates for some real human need like belonging or love that could be fulfilled through real human contact. In fact, the products themselves only temporarily dull the pain that comes from not having real human contact. This situation is ideal for people who make and sell these products, as the products do not actually solve the problem and so people keep coming back for more. Therefore, this entire sector of our economy is a waste of human effort. People making and selling products that do not actually relieve any human suffering are wasting their lives and the lives of others.

If everyone were fed, clothed, housed, and had access to basic medicine, I would have no problem with anyone doing any stupid or selfish thing. I would never force anyone to try to rectify this problem, but I will always call them out on it and attempt to shame them for being selfish. People do not get to be around me, act selfishly, and still get to think of themselves as great people, at least not without a fight from me.

Re:Astroturfing

[Lord_Dweomer]

Its quite obvious you have put up your walls and are refusing to listen to logic but I'll try addressing you point by point.

If the masses actually NEEDED products, they would find them. But advertising isn't about helping people find products they need, it is about making people want products they don't have.

And how would they go about finding them? How about the families that don't know jack about the internet? I'd like some actual examples of how they could find out about things. In terms of need vs want, as another poster kindly pointed out ads don't make you WANT anything. The flaw is in the viewer who feels they are missing something from their lives and then decides upon seeing an ad that that is the solution. That's how the majority of it works. I'm not going to pretend there aren't scummy advertisers who prey on the insecurities of people. There are. And a lot of advertising laws are designed to prevent that.

The military-industrial complex is also a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Yet it adds nothing of value to human life. In fact it does just the opposite, taking all value from human lives by taking those lives. If there were no armies anywhere, there would be no need for armies. The child labor industry makes billions, too. Just because something is popular or highly valued does not mean it is useful in relieving human suffering.

First, you are flat out wrong. Of all of the government organizations out there, the military has contributed more to society (and humanity) than any other. For all of the wars that are waged and people that are killed, how many have been saved due to the ridiculous medical breakthroughs that have come from military sponsored research? There is a lot of evidence to back this up so I suggest you spend some time reading on wikipedia. For starters we wouldn't even be having this discussion now if it weren't for DARPA. If there were no armies anywhere there would STILL be a need a for them as law enforcement is always needed, and that is what the military is at its base.

Providing entertainment is NOT what good advertising is about. An ad that was entertaining but sold no products would be a miserable failure. Making people do things they otherwise wouldn't is what advertising is about. Marketers and advertisers create demand for products that, in a sane world, would fail. If advertising didn't work like black magic mind control, it wouldn't be a multi billion dollar a year industry.

Its statements like these that go to show how little you actually know about the subject you are debating. First off, I AM an ad exec, so don't you dare tell me what is and is not good advertising until you first provide your credentials. Providing entertainment builds brand equity which in turn can lead to a purchase further down the line or a mention to a friend who might purchase, etc. In regards to making people do things...nobody is holding a fucking gun to someones head saying buy our product or else. If the consumer is too insecure and too stupid to realize that THEY DON"T HAVE TO BUY THE FUCKING PRODUCT, then that's their problem. If advertising worked like black magic mind control the world would not be the way it is today. People would be living on the streets from having all of their hard earned money spent on products that cost nothing to make since...you know...rational thought would not kick in and say "I don't need this and I can't afford this".

Advertisers are like virus writers for the mind. The phrase 'viral marketing' is a dead giveaway. If you are an advertiser, you are a virus writer. You are scum who takes advantage of bugs in people's mental operating system.

Again, showing your lack of any understanding of the industry....viral marketing was termed viral because of how it spreads organically by people passing the word along to their friends. Not because it "hack

Re:Astroturfing

[merkhet]

Of course, there may be a slight difference between lying to get a person to buy a PSP and lying to get a person to buy a cancer stick. (Or maybe not.) You see, you've placed dangerous lies in the same camp as manipulative lies, which seems to be quite an arbitrary method of grouping them. One necessarily contains the risk of harm to the individual receiving the lie, whereas the other does not, by definition, implicitly mean that the risk of harm will result. (Although, even the cigarette example has defects -- perhaps if you had focused on the lying about whether nicotine was addictive as opposed to the health effects.)

As for whether or not I'm a real person, well, you've seemingly stumbled onto the "I think therefore I am" conundrum. According to Descartes, you're the only person that you can be absolutely sure exists -- because of your self-awareness of your own cognitive processes. So your problem, by construction, is a philosophic truism rather than the result of the regulatory measures currently in place. (or lack thereof)

Furthermore, it seems rather unfortunate that your response is that "[my] argument won't get a second[']s consideration from [you], regardless of [the] merits, lest [you] fall into [my] deceptive trap!" It's unfortunate because you are focusing on the person as opposed to the actual argument itself. (i.e. - I am a paid UID and therefore nothing in my post can be believed) Perhaps it would be more constructive to figure out for yourself whether there is any wheat in the chaff.

*/ sarcasm /* And finally, you're entirely right. Free speech is overrated. I mean, how can we live in this world unless views such as mine (or others here who agree with free speech) are suppressed? Regulated speech is the gateway to the true Utopias -- Orwellian reservations notwithstanding. */ sarcasm /*

Re:Astroturfing

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Let's look at the evidence. Listerine invented haslitosis. DeBeers invented the engagement ring. Hallmark invented Valentines day. Did anyone really worry about dandruff before Head & Shoulders started telling everyone they are undesireable if they have flakes? Advertisers and marketers create artificial demand for a product rather than just pointing people who already want a product towards a supplier. Do you dispute that?

I do indeed! Halitosis -- bad breath to the layman -- was not invented by Listerine. I defy you to not brush you teeth for a couple weeks and tell me there's no noticeable, undesirable odor (let alone how your mouth might feel, or the organisms that would be growing in there; those are health risks). DeBeers, or anyone else, did not invent the engagement ring; the ring is an ancient symbol that has been in use at least since ancient Celtic society, though I'd argue much longer in other parts of the world. And Hallmark did not invent Valentine's Day; even as we understand the day now, it was established long before Hallmark decided to build a business on greeting cards. Advertisers can ATTEMPT to create artificial demand, but any demand generated is built upon a real human desire, to solve a real human concern. Even washing one's hair is at it's base a matter of hygiene. Dirty, smell people are undesirable because they're dirty and small, not to mention health concerns that crop up from not bathing oneself. Yes, it's an extreme to say, "either you're using dandruff shampoo or you aten't bathing yourself," but it's more of a stretch to say, "there's no actual need or value in dandruff shampoo."

I can hardly believe we're arguing about this.

Yes, a lot of advertising preys on human weaknesses. And yeah, they're at fault for that, but we're at fault for being susceptible. You may complain that people shouldn't write viruses, but I bet you still install patches when they come out. Even at that, I submit that advertising has value even in the Utopian light of a full-patched humanity -- because at it's base, advertising points consumers toward a producer who has a service they want.

Advertising doesn't make people dumber. It may prey upon dumb people, but simply being subject to a commercial doesn't mean I'm going to be suddenly compelled, against all my reason and learning, to do something I know is ridiculous. And I'd still argue that they don't *create* suffering; even if they take advantage of the human condition, that condition and all it's suffering was *already* there. They don't add suffering by offering you a product, even if that product *is* snake oil (which, again, I argue almost none of it is). At worst you could argue they prevent someone from investing in a true solution to what ails them, but I think you'll find yourself hard pressed to solve man's problems. And by that I mean to say that man would be clueless on where to invest himself even in the absence of advertising -- and in reality, advertising does serve some good, however small, in connecting consumer with supplier. Can you deny that

Re:Astroturfing

[cptgrudge]

Whatever demographic they were aiming for, they've missed it and caused collateral damage. They didn't intentionally sacrifice goodwill for anything, though that's what happened; poor choice of words on my part. But yeah, you're probably right. There's nothing more "uncool" to a youth than a parent trying to be "hip".

In this case, it could work on both ends. First, the kids see Sony (as an "authority figure") doing this, so there's collective eyerolling and irritation on their part. Then, the adults (and society in general) see the kids react, and possibly start figuring that Sony isn't "cool" anymore as a part of the endless quest to be "cool". So instead of a net "cool" gain with the kids, Sony gets a net "uncool" with kids and adults.

Re:Astroturfing

[spun]

Firstly, I think what you do is reprehensible. You aren't going to change my mind on that. Hopefully I can convince others that your entire industry is a collosal waste of time and effort. I know that you think you are a good person who contributes to society, and that all your family and friends tell you the same thing. In fact, our society venerates people such as yourself who make a lot of money. So on the one hand, we have your opinion of yourself which is backed up by family, friends, and society, and on the other hand we have me telling you that what you do is reprehensible. One of the perks of buying into the game and playing it well is that you never have to question your assumptions. So go on feeling like you have contributed something of value to society, there is no real pressure to feel otherwise. But that doesn't make your feelings true and in the end, history will look back on your kind as the leeches you are.

As an advertising executive, would you say that an ad that does not in some way eventually drive up sales is a good ad or a bad ad? I will dare tell you it is a bad ad, and I will further dare tell you that you will look like a very stupid ad executive if you contradict me. Your choice of life path has so divorced you from your own sense of logic that you can question my statement about what makes a good ad, and then in the very next sentence basically restate what I had originally said. Ads entertain in order to sell products. An ad that entertains but never "builds brand equity which in turn can lead to a purchase further down the line or a mention to a friend who might purchase, etc." is a failure and I don't have to be an ad industry executive to know that. I'm actually hoping you try to dispute that, it will be very amusing to watch a leech twist itself into a pretzel.

As for the military, you don't seem to understand the concept of opportunity cost. Sure, we got something out of our military investment. But, for example, if I told you I invested $100 and five years later I had made a total of $1 in profit, would you say that was a good investment or a bad investment? Bad? But I profited, how can that be bad? Because, if I had invested that money in almost anything else I would have made more. Similarly, if we had invested all the money spent on the military on other things, we would have profited more.

You would blame the viewer of your ads for doing the very thing you set out to convince them to do, wouldn't you? How convenient. Profit off of others weaknesses and then blame them for being weak. This perfectly illustrates the utter lack of morals in your industry. As it is, we have record levels of consumer debt in this country, and yet all scientific studies of happiness levels show that we are no happier than people in many poor countries where people have nothing except strong community, a large network of friends, and a feeling of belonging and self worth. Do we need to go into debt to be happy? Obviously not, others all over the world do it.

I have volunteered at a homeless shelter and I have met a family that tried to keep up with the Joneses because of what advertisers told them they had to do in order to be worthwile humans. They went bankrupt and had to live in a shelter. Were they stupid? Yes. But the people who profited off of their stupidity are worse, they are evil. Good people try to help people like that. Bad people try to make money off of them.

Because you have had to turn off major patrs of your brain in order to live with yourself and your choices, you can not see the ridiculousness of your own statements: "viral marketing was termed viral because of how it spreads organically by people passing the word along to their friends. Not because it "hacks peoples brains"." Wow. How does it spread organically? What does it do to people in order to get them to "pass the word on to their friends?" What else spreads organically by getting people to pass it on to their friends? If you try to wake up from your self induced coma and think before you writ

Re:Astroturfing

[spun]

When I say Listerine invented bad breath, of course I am not saying that it didn't exist before Listerine! I am saying it wasn't an issue before Listerine made it an issue. From Freakonomics:

Listerine was invented in the 19th century as a powerful surgical antiseptic. It was later sold, in a distilled form, as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. But it wasn't a runaway success until the 1920s, when it was pitched as a solution for "chronic halitosis", the faux medical term that the Listerine advertising group created in 1921 to describe bad breath. By naming and thus creating a medical condition for which consumers now felt they needed a cure, Listerine created a market for their mouthwash. Until that time, bad breath was not conventionally considered a catastrophe, but Listerine's ad campaign changed that.

When I said DeBeers invented the engagement ring, I really meant the diamond engagement ring and I should have been more clear. They also invented the concept of the surprise proposal. Their market research showed that women would rather have a man spend money on a down payment on a home, and so they convinced men not to ask and just buy her the ring. The idea that a man should spend two months salary on a trinket is ridiculous and any woman who hadn't been brainwashed would tell him so.

As to Valentines day, well of course it is traditional but it was never traditional to give pre made greeting cards, chocolate or jewelry. It was always a time when you wrote your sweetheart love poems. But no one could make much money on that, so Hallmark reinvented it here in America as a gift giving holiday.

Dandruff was never seen as an embarassing problem until dandruff shampoo companies concentrated on making people feel bad about having it.

Let me ask you, is a woman at fault for being raped? No? Even if she is wearing provocative clothing? Even if she is alone at night, weak and susceptible? Is a mugging victim at fault for being weak and susceptible? Why would you blame the victim here?

I have given examples above where am advertiser has created a demand for a product by making people feel bad about something they enver felt bad about before. Also, by wasting time that could be spent on relieveing real suffering, advertising promotes suffering. Finally, advertisers have a vested interest in keeping people stupid and easily manipulated and so they will unconsciously play along with all the other powerful people who have similar goals, often in subtle or unconscious ways.

In a fully sane human race, there would be no advertising and the role of getting the word out connecting buyers and sellers would be done by independent reviewers like Consumer Reports. I guess you could call that advertising, in which case I wouldn't deny there is some place for it in a fully sane society. But that is stretching the definition quite a bit.

Re:Astroturfing

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Well, I wasn't around before 1920, so I can't speak for the kind of epiphany someone may or may not have had then. And maybe you'd argue that I've been manipulated from birth due to the vicious advertising we're subjected to. But, frankly, I find bad breath to be undesirable in myself and the ;people I spend my time around because I don't like things that stink. And the fact that there *is* something to remedy it combines nicely with the fact that I think it ought to be remedied, and viola we have a marketable product. We can dance around this for days, where you say the things we think are undesirable are just so because we've been told so and I say they're undesirable because they're gross, or inconvenient, or whatever. You seem to claim that every convenience or luxury is a shame and a crime because it's not ending world hunger or settling unrest in the Middle East.

There's a lot of things that people didn't historically think needed to be fixed that we can manage today that make our lives easier. What about refrigeration, or pasteurization, or air conditioning, or the Internet? None of those are *needs*. No one in the Middle Ages would have thought, 'Gee, I wish I could keep meat from spoiling for weeks' because there was no intelligible solution. He might as well have thought, 'Gee, I wish I could fly to France!' But we do that today, too, and no one blinks an eye.

I won't fall into your trap of blaming the victim, but just that same I'm sure you wouldn't tell your daughter to go out dressed 'like that,' or that you wouldn't be concerned knowing she was walking home alone after dark. You WOULD tell a user to patch his system, though, and if he refused to do so you'd call him a fool. You'd blame him for not taking appropriate care.

I think your appeal to sanity is absurd; you imply that insecurity or desire is madness. Maybe a fully 'rational' or fully 'disciplined' human race, but even then I think you're wrong about advertising. We would have and need advertising because of what it does -- connects consumers with a producer. For some reason you seem to think Consumer Reports is not a kind of advertising; I can only assume because they don't seem to prey on human insecurities. OK, fair enough, but even still it's not advertising you hate, it's sleazy advertising, and I still hold that most advertising isn't sleazy.

Ending sleazy advertising would not make smarter people. But making smarter people would end sleazy advertising. You can't appeal to a weakness that isn't there, after all.

I can't believe you think 'publicizing a product' is a stretch on the term 'advertising.'

Re:Astroturfing

[JackOfAllGeeks]

You would blame the viewer of your ads for doing the very thing you set out to convince them to do, wouldn't you?

Pardon me for butting in, but ads set out to sell products. they do not, as a rule, set out to cause financial ruin. The reason for this is because someone who ruins themselves can not then spend more money later on -- take that as you will, but ads are therefore *not* meant to make people over-extend themselves, buy more than they can afford, or even really buy more than they need. If someone does any of these things, yes, it's their fault.

ow. How does it spread organically? What does it do to people in order to get them to "pass the word on to their friends?" What else spreads organically by getting people to pass it on to their friends? If you try to wake up from your self induced coma and think before you write, you may end up not making absurd self contradictory comments.

Are you incapable of understanding a figurative notion? It doesn't *do* anything. Viral marketing is not something Companies do; it's something customers do. It's when I like something and start extolling the virtues of that something to anyone who will listen, because I believe in the product. When a company tries to induce that, it's guerrilla marketing, or astroturfing. I'm not even really sure what it is you're trying to do except chain something like marketing -> viral marketing -> viruses -> disease -> bad -> evil.

you keep crying 'lies, lies, lies!' But you haven't produced any. Show me where an add lies. Give me an example where some add says something about the product that isn't true. They legally can't -- that's false advertising. They can't even be really misleading for the same reasons. So where are all these lies you're talking about? He didn't get the girl because he ate the gum, he got the girl because he was confident and approach her, and she received him well. Any other interpretation is a flaw in your reasoning.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

Do you know what the real problem with American politics is today? Too many ignorant idiots who want to go be a superhero and ignore the matters of actually ruling a nation, often to the detriment of the ruling that has actually previously taken place.

The country is in such bad financial shape that some critics have predicted the bankruptcy of the US within our lifetime. Kids are being sent to brainwashing camps for "playing doctor", and honour students are being expelled from school for forgetting their scout knife in their pocket because of blind and draconian 'zero tolerance' policies. Hysteria about terrorism is threatening trade with both neighbours because of increased restrictions for people and goods. State's rights are being eroded, and what do you want to do? Eliminate a 102 year old institution charged with watching large corporations and other institutions like it so you can focus entirely on short sightedly trying to battle the present-day high profile battles.

At some point, this unreality is going to end, and it's either going to be because the country is finally wrecked by people's irresponsible "wishful thinking is the same as fact" attitudes and ignorance of the business of actually ruling a nation.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

Erm...Jumped the gun, ironically.

At some point, this unreality is going to end, and it's either going to be because the country is finally wrecked by people's irresponsible "wishful thinking is the same as fact" attitudes and ignorance of the business of actually ruling a nation, or because people finally come to their senses and realise that the most important things when ruling a nation aren't sexy, but they keep a country going indefinitely despite whatever troubles they must face.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

Your thesis is flawed. Saying "Commercial entities ought not to lie" isn't arbitrary, saying "There are good lies and bad lies, and a company should be able to lie good lies while being forced not to endorse bad lies on a case-by-case basis determining what sort of lie it is" is arbitrary.

Companies ought not to lie. Yes, this is a deontological ethic, but the only fair way to have such a law is just like that. The law then, in order to be enforceable(Because your teleological ethic requires a case-by-case examination of all instances to be effective) and just (because such an arbitrary law would be unjust, subject to the whims of rulers), ought to be such a statement. "Companies ought not to lie, and thus it is illegal for a commercial entity to lie while acting in a commercial capacity."

But hey, I know you're just a paid for actor pretending to argue with me, so that's fine. By the way, good on you for intentionally misinterpeting "real person". You're really working hard for the company dime.

Re:Astroturfing

[Lord_Dweomer]

Thank you. I don't have the patience to keep pointing out the obvious to this lunatic. I have given hard examples and responded point by point...and he goes and rants on and on about how viral marketing is affecting people like a disease and all this other personal attack crap, which borders on slander.

Re:Astroturfing

[Anonymous Coward]

> Eliminate a 102 year old institution

What institution would that be?

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

The FTC, which was....Damn. Ok, the 92 year old institution. Curse you, posting right after work.

At any rate, my points remain valid, especially considering a lot of these government institutions came into existence right around the turn of the century to combat actual abuses by companies.

Re:Astroturfing

[ShieldW0lf]

Yeah... try in my 30s, self-employeed, making six figures a year, kid in private school, actively pursuing business plans that put my money where my mouth is. As opposed to the brainiac who likes to flame, apparently he's unemployed. Go figure...

Re:Astroturfing

[merkhet]

Ah, but you didn't say that "[c]ommercial entities ought not [] lie." You said that there should be a reasonable level of trust that should be enforced to protect the public from dangerous and manipulative lies. The added qualifiers indicate either that you meant to address only those lies which are dangerous and manipulative or that you were imprecise in trying to state that all lies should be prohibited.

I wonder if you were aware of the wonderful irony in saying that I'm misinterpreting a "real person" when you state that I have somehow said that "There are good lies and bad lies . . . " No lie is inherently good or bad. Good or bad are relative measure that have absolutely no meaning when divorced from comparison from the normative baseline from which you align the general notions of "good" and "bad." I would expect someone whose sig is "Nihilism is worthless" to at least understand that much.

What's even more interesting is your blind acceptance of a deontological ethic. You immediately state that the only "fair" thing to do is to have a law such as the one you propose, and completely neglect any treatment of the possibility that what you see as fair is nothing more than naked preference on your part. Fairness is nothing more than a point of view. Your attempts to wrap your personal preference within the illusion of nobility are rather disappointing.

You also touch on another very interesting point with the tension between enforceability and justice. It's easy for a deontologist to blindly accept bright line rules such as "[c]ompanies ought not [] lie" because you believe that justice lies in the following of your preferred method of regulatory treatment. However, that's a willful attempt at abandoning a more serious inquiry into the nature of enforcement and justice. In order to ease the enforcement of a law, one must necessarily decrease the amount of justice that can be done.

For instance, lets take the drunk driving laws. Some people can drive safely with a BAC of 0.11 and some cannot. While enforceability is enhanced by a law that criminalizes driving with a BAC of 0.08, it does not do justice to that percentage of the population which can drive unimpeded at a BAC of 0.11. Of course, if you automatically think that a law that criminalizes having a BAC of over 0.08 is "just," you can very conveniently forget about that.

So you are either a proponent of enforceability over justice or the other way around. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Sucks, but that's life. (Especially since what you put in parenthesis about justice is really about enforceability.)

I must commend you, however, for at least trying to engage me on the merits of my argument as opposed to following through on your declaration (possibly sarcastic) that you would not do me the favor of considering my arguments "lest [you] fall into [my] deceptive trap!"

Oh, and I'm off the company dime on this one. This was a freebie cuz I was oh so proud of you engaging me on the merits of this discussion. ^_~

Re:Astroturfing

[GaryPatterson]

Well, if only they weren't such a bunch of rootkit-installing, lying scumbags wanting everything their own way and playing both sides of the music industry game (don't pirate our stuff, but we'll sell you the equipment to do it) then maybe I'd be more interested in buying their stuff.

Except every time I've compared their music or video products, they come out much more expensive and less functional than many other big brand name companies.

So yes, well done to Sony for admitting that they tried to deceive the world. Unfortunately that's still a nett negative - they lied and admitted it. A much better goal would be to *not* lie and *start out* by making good stuff. Funny that that never occurred to them.

Re:Astroturfing

[AlHunt]

I'm not going to argue that the problems you cite aren't urgent. I will take issue with your characterization of abuses of eminent domain, energy supply and legislators stalking minors as "short sightedly trying to battle the present-day high profile battles". I do that you did not include "viral marketing" in your list of pressing issues.

Yes, Sir. I'll gut FTC tomorrow, given an opportunity. Along with about 75% of the rest of government, starting right here in my town. Government (federal, state or local) doesn't need to investigate viral marketing, spam or most of the other "issues" they stick their fat noses into. Federal government is supposed to provide for the national defense and regulate interstate commerce. [insert lengthy rant re: abuses of government power here]

Tell you what - stop re-electing incumbent politicians and see what 10 years will bring. We'll have a much smaller, more focused government without career politicians in busy mucking things up.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

To be honest, I've come to realize that all values are arbitrarily chosen, and my statements reflect this. I'm not saying "companies ought not to lie" for any reason that can be reduced to a tangible first principle, because the first principle will always be arbitrarily chosen and from there you can't keep asking "why" until you reach a point where the moralist or ethicist has to go "No reason, I just decided it should be this way".

If you were to arbitrarily choose a first principle such as "Financial transactions ought to be transparent and free from intentional deception from any party because neither party would want to be deceived and this can protect both parties from each other, thus increasing the overall happiness in the world for the most people thus fulfilling the goals of preference utilitarianism", then it's easy to say from there that neither customers nor companies ought to be allowed to engage in any deceptive practices. On the other hand, Reaganomics uses the opposite sort of arguement, "Large companies ought to have greater freedom and financial security at any cost because then the largest amount of money can be sent to people who are in a position to fund large projects and by paying workers, redistribute the money more effectively and lower unemployment, thus satisfying the goals of preference utilitarianism", then the opposite is true, and by being decieved, the deceptive practice helps distributive justice by taking money from people from people who can afford luxury products, and further distributing it to more people.

I'm struggling with the idea at the moment, and I've got a sort of holding pattern in place, where I'm a nihilist who sees that nihilism doesn't have anything in it's description advocating any ethic at all, exactly because there is no common value, meaning, or sense. As a result, I've defined an arbitrary set of values based upon arbitrarily defined first principles. In this case, truth is one of my most important values, so when I say with conviction that someone ought not to be allowed to pay another person to deceive people into believing that they're giving an unaffiliated and unendorsed positive opinion of a product, it's based on that arbitrary value. Also, in this case, unlike a human, a large commercial entity has the ability to commit this unethical behaviour throughout entire countries with limits only set by their marketing budget.

And the reason we have scientifically validatable limits like the blood alcohol level is that if we used teleological ethics in such matters, an arbitrary judgement call on the part of the officer would be needed. This is a major issue because it's truly arbitrary. If the cop is in a good mood, maybe the drunk gets off, "Aw, you can drive". If he's in a bad mood, maybe someone who has had no alcohol can be charged with drunk driving and convicted, because the test is arbitrary. The same happens here. If we say "You can't lie or decieve as a company", then it's easy to enforce and relatively easy to judge. If the result is based entirely on whether the lie is considered harmful or malicious, then you get situations where the tobacco company is hit with massive fines for their lobbying efforts, but everyone else in the world, regardless of what they're doing, is allowed to continue to use deceptive tactics to get laws changed in their favour. Since just judging whether something is the truth is difficult at times, telling if it's the truth AND that it's caused appreciable harm to someone so it's worth pursuing is nearly impossible.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

This is a falsifiable theory.

Canada has been encountering massive shifts in their voting patterns in the past few years. The Liberal party of Canada has had a lot of its seats removed, with the Conservative Party of Canada holding a tonne of new seats. At the same time, the New Democratic Party is gaining seats due to the perception that their handling of being a competent balance of power in a minority government. The Bloc Quebecois are mostly holding their seats, they've got a pretty strong grip on Quebec, and all the major parties are trying to get in on their area.

Thing is, we have organizations like the FTC so we don't have to worry about whether Viral marketing is an issue. It's the same as food processing. It came about becasuse companies were putting dangerous goods out for sale. Do we get rid of them now because they're doing their jobs and thousands aren't dying of food poisoning? Workplace health and safety's mere existence has stopped a lot of companies from trying to replicate the conditions documented in The Jungle, the book which documented the deplorable conditions in the plants for workers and for food safety.

I'm not going to pretend there isn't pork in a lot of places, but your reaction looks to me like a simple unthinking "We need less government so we can focus on the issues of today", forgetting that the issues of yesterday were solved with the solutions of yesterday.

Re:Astroturfing

[merkhet]

I'm not sure you can be a nihilist if you've crafted an arbitrary set of values that you believe are somehow better than other values. The most you can say is that those are your values and you follow them. Anything beyond that would reveal a belief that you think your first principles are somehow more than just first principles.

Re:Astroturfing

[ezeri]

Ouch, 30 years is a long time to be that nieve.

Re:Astroturfing

[Sj0]

There's the thing, by recognising that they're arbitrary and meaningless, you're effectively nihilist. "My values are valueless and meaningless and I've chosen them arbitrarily based on nothing in particular"

Investiage

[HTH NE1]

Investiage: an investigation employing the triage method.

Re:Investiage

[Rick Genter]

I don't know, I think it has a certain amount of "truthiness" to it... ;-)

Re:Investiage

[IHC Navistar]

I believe it's called "Marketer's Itch".

I don't think they have a cream for it yet, though.

About Time

[Slipgrid]

60 Minutes covered this about two years ago. It's a good segment if you can find the video.

Re:About Time

[poopdeville]

Are you, directly or indirectly, in the employ of CBS, its subsidiaries, or owners?

Re:About Time

[Slipgrid]

No, but you might expect that.

Fitting story

[wile_e_wonka]

IS slashdot trying to redeam itself after being conned into an instance of viral marketing?!

See particularly this portion of the comments/story...

Re:Fitting story

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Heck, they get accusations of slashvertisements already.

When did it become illegal?

[Intron]

Why are they investigating? Is it illegal, or is the FTC overfunded?

If they want to investigate deceptive advertising that has cost Americans billions of dollars, then I would prefer that they investigate the Iraq war.

Re:When did it become illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't investigating. They are investiaging. Slight difference.

Re:When did it become illegal?

[devilspgd]

Ahh, but that would cut their budget... This is better, they can pretend they're doing something for the consumer, probably without actually hurting any corporations donating heavily to the current batch of congresscritters.

Re:When did it become illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine that at some point all viral marketing campaigns require use of pretexting. That's not always legal.

Re:When did it become illegal?

[honkycat]

They're investigating because it may be a deceptive trade practice. Good luck with the troll, though.

Re:When did it become illegal?

[earnest murderer]

It is in fact in the FTC's domain and is already regulated. The fuss is that the FCC has, after years of appeals, roused itself enough to talk about the idea of doing something about it.

Don't they have anything better to do?

[needacoolnickname]

Whoopee! The advertisers found out what the kids like and decided to use that to try and get more eye balls.

How about just dealing with it when the compaines lie and that whole false advertising thing?

Do people really think places like youtube and myspace were created for the community to use? No, they were created so they could get bought out by the big corporations and those corporations could put advertisments up.

Oh, and having a link in your signature to something you are trying to hock and replying to this article that this should have been looked into a long time ago... yeah, kinda hypocritcal.

Re:Don't they have anything better to do?

[cjcollier]

maybe it was intended to be ironical

Re:Don't they have anything better to do?

[mallardtheduck]

But viral marketers *are* lying.

An advert that claims to be something else is inherently dishonest. In fact, I would go as far as to say any advert that is not clearly marked as an advert is a deliberate attempt to deceive the customer.

Wii

[Laz10]

I think that in the future the way we (slashdot/digg/bloggers) marketed the Wii will be a textbook sample of how viral marketing is done.

Re:Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Brainwash Zonk 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!

Re:Wii

[LWATCDR]

Not really. The Wii is doing well for a couple of very good reasons.
1. Nintendo has had a lot of success with the DS and DS Lite.
2. The Wii is more available and costs a lot less than the PS3 which is the other new console on the market.
3. Sony has been creating a lot of negative press all on their own. UMD movies where where a huge flop, Sony was really hoping that the PSP would take the number one spot in handhelds like the PSONE and PS2 did in consoles which it has not. Rootkit and exploding batteries fill out the scorecard for Sony's PR. Oh and let's not forget the lame viral marketing website for the PSP. Oh and I forgot shutting down one of the most popular import gaming sites on the Internet.

Sony's actions have created a lot of bad will in the technical community so the reaction seems totally logical. Nintendo produced some cool kit hasn't ticked anyone off lately.

Re:Wii

[Vellmont]

I think that in the future the way we (slashdot/digg/bloggers) marketed the Wii will be a textbook sample of how viral marketing is done.


And what exactly is that process? From what I've seen it's:

1. Develop product that people want, does something new and interesting that no other product has done before, and at a reasonable price.
2. Produce that product in adequate numbers so people can actually buy the product.

See, the hard part is accumplishing step 1. Most companies would give their eye teeth to be able to find the right combination of features for the right price that people want and is new and different enough that people will talk about it.

The only thing new about "viral marketing" is the name "viral marketing". You could say the same thing about television when it first came out, but no one called having their friends over to watch Milton Bearly "viral marketing".

Re:Wii

[damien_kane]

Nintendo produced some cool kit hasn't ticked anyone off lately.

Other than people who soaked themselves in astroglide then threw their Wiimote through their TV, window, or friends head... no... noone ticked off at all. Granted, those things are more funny (hilariously so, at that), but there's still a bit of bad press

Re:Wii

[Laz10]

I agree with you.
The Wii would have been nothing if it wasn't a great product. Marketing doesn't take you far if the product isn't great.

Still I belive that somebody at Nintendo has been watching the tech community and made sure that bits of information was constantly spilled so there was a reason to post a new Wii story every day. Honestly some days at digg about half the stories was Wii stories.

Call it "feeding the hype" or what ever you will. The suits call it viral marketing.

Re:Wii

[Sunburnt]

"The only thing new about "viral marketing" is the name "viral marketing". You could say the same thing about television when it first came out, but no one called having their friends over to watch Milton Bearly "viral marketing"."

Sorry, that analogy doesn't apply. If individuals specifically paid money by Berle's producers to extol his comedic virtue, without disclosing this business relationship, were among these friends, then the term "viral marketing" is accurate. As far as we know, nobody was doing this back in Berle's day.

And anyone who takes money to influence their friends' opinions is worse than a virus; perhaps "filthy whore marketing" is a more apt term?

Re:Wii

[Vellmont]

Still I belive that somebody at Nintendo has been watching the tech community and made sure that bits of information was constantly spilled so there was a reason to post a new Wii story every day.

My problem is that the marketing guys think what they're doing is having an effect. My girlfriend and I went to a friends house to play Wii. I haven't owned a console since the Atari 2600, and my girlfriend has never owned a console. Both of us thought it was pretty cool and we might eventually buy one. I'm pretty sure our friend wasn't paid by someone. There were multiple stories on Slashdot about people who's parents played the thing till 1am. Are we really supposed to believe these were all plants?

See, the thing about viral marketing is that people LIKE believing what other people have to say. If anything the attempts by the marketing guys to supercharge word-of-mouth campaigns is just going to wind up hurting them if anything. If companies destroy this trust, people are just going to be even more skeptical of any claim made by a friend, some guy online, etc.

Fourth poste!

[cjcollier]

That sure is purdy brown chrome. Reminiscint of a certain release of Ubuntu, IIRC.

Thank you teh feds for taking care of this problem. spam is not so good.

Won't someone think of the ad agencies?!

[TheWoozle]

I mean, how else are people going to be programmed to buy overpriced, useless crap? Won't you please help a hard-working advertising executive (who has enriched our culture with priceless works of art like this) afford his third Mercedes?

Re:Won't someone think of the ad agencies?!

[RexRhino]

Um, actually the hard-working advertising executive hates viral marketing, and prefers rather traditional (and very expensive) TV commercials.

Re:Won't someone think of the ad agencies?!

[Ranger]

I just watched that Emerald Nuts commercial and all I can say is: What the fuck was that?

Re:Won't someone think of the ad agencies?!

[Lord_Dweomer]

News flash, that hard-working ad exec cannot afford his third Mercedes...he's probably still working on his first. The average account executive makes about 40-60k/year. If you're talking in terms of upper management, then you're talking closer to 80k-120k. There are of course exceptions, but please do not go spreading false rumors about the industry. Advertising does not pay very well in general except for those who own agencies, or directors/producers who can demand a lot for their work.

Re:Won't someone think of the ad agencies?!

[alx5000]

This is just like Spanish Amstel beer promotion:

- Amigo Mío Sólo Tú Encuentras Leña (Only You Can Find Firewood My Friend)
- Amigo Mío Si Te Echaras Laca (My Friend, If Only You Used Hairspray)

They made some commercials (I can remember those two), in which they sang nonsensical (though quite funny, I gotta admit) songs including those sentences. After two or three weeks, the songs were quite popular and you could get them for your cell phone by texting some premium number.

Disclaimer: The translations above may suck.

An even more sinister activity

[noidentity]

Some companies have taken this a step further and are attempting to manipulate the customers themselves into giving good reviews. They are using a technique of improving the quality of their product, causing any sane customer to be unable to respond negatively. These coercive practices must end!

Re:An even more sinister activity

[devilspgd]

It's cheaper to just convince people they like a product then to make a product people actually like.

The Sony Strain...

[__aaclcg7560]

Does this mean that Sony will get a marketing flu shot?

Re:The Sony Strain...

[springbox]

Um, they shoot themselves quite frequently, but it doesn't seem to be working..

Sometimes it Backfires

[Toreo asesino]

One such example was when Virgin attempted to get Internet humour website B3ta.com to come up with something for their "say yes" campaign. Virgin got rather offended in fact over what was being produced and pulled out. It did however generate a storm of publicity (The Inq. wasn't the only site to report this cock-up), so it was successful in some respects.

Re:Sometimes it Backfires

[BabyDave]

That was at least partly because their "say yes" campaign was ripping off the book Yes Man by Danny Wallace. (Allegedly)

Question . . .

[Eagleartoo]

My only question is, how is this any different from regular advertising. Because of freedom of speech, all's fair in love and advertising.

Take for instance the Michael J. Fox political ad. It was extremely pointed and misleading, but there was no problem running it on television, you're paying your "friends" in the media world to publish something in circulation, what's the difference in paying some private individual, who now thanks to the internet has a wide range of available free speech options, to do the same.

Do you trust everything you read on the internet? Why or why not? Same thing goes toward every advertisement or piece of advice that you get from someone. I don't TRULY know if product A works better than product B, but because I'm friends with the creator of product A I'll tell everyone how great it is if they ask. If I was getting paid, I would tell people even more vehemently.

Advertisers are in the business of making things look better than they really are, to create some sort of value in the minds of consumers without directly saying "value" (which is a no-no). And if I spend my company's ad dollars on getting either my employees or others to do peer-to-peer advertising as it were, again how is that different from spending it on radio/television/newspaper/magazine/internet. What about game reviews in magazine, do you think the company has a vested interest in how they are seen? Are they going to continue to advertise with a magazine that continues to give them bad reviews? Or are the reviews in the magazine lop-sided so as to encourage ad-revenue?

The last thing we need is more interference, it is in direct opposition of freedom. If you can be bought, why do you care? You can't make people play nice, it's still a choice =).

Re:Question . . .

[morgan_greywolf]

Advertising is commercial speech. Commercial speech is regulated by, among other agencies, the FTC. For example, it's illegal to make false claims about a product or service. Nissan can't make claims that a car they sell can do 0 to 60 under 3 seconds unless the car can actually do 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds. McDonald's can't go around claiming that the Big Mac as it is today is low in fat, unless they come out with a 'Tofu Big Mac' or whatever.

There are all kinds of other laws regulating commercial speech: cigarette advertising must include disclaimers stating that smoking is hazardous, 'bait and switch' advertising tactics are illegal, etc.

One reason why the FTC is investigating 'viral marketing' practices is that they are trying to see if advertisers are using viral marketing practices to try to to do a 'run around' on the various FTC-imposed marketing rules. Another reason is that they are trying to see if the marketing practice is unfair to the consumer, because one of the charters of the FTC is to make sure that marketing practices are fair to the consumer.

My point is that no one should really be surprised by any of this... regulation of commercial speech is one of the things that the FTC does.

Re:Question . . .

[JayBlalock]

#1 - no, the Michael J. Fox ad was NOT misleading. That is what someone with advanced Parkinsons looks like, even on meds. (are there meds that can cut out all shaking? Some... if you don't mind insomnia and hallucinations and becoming essentially house-bound) It's much more accurate to say every *other* televised appearance he made was misleading, edited to cut out all the shaking and bobbing going on in real life.

And, quite honestly, a little research into the issue could have told you this. Don't always believe what you're told by the talking heads. Which brings us right to...

And #2 - the reason it's misleading is that people are not told it's an advertisement. For example - have you ever noticed every now and then in magazines, there'll be an advertisement made up to look as though it was an article in the magazine? And if you look closely, WHENEVER this is done, there is a disclaimer at the bottom stating that it is a paid advertisement.

That is because it IS deceptive (and illegal) to present advertisements in the guise of something else without declaring them as such.

There was little doubt in anyone's mind that the FTC was going to come down on these schenanigans. They've ruled against concealed advertisements every other time the issue has come up. Putting up a blog with someone who claims to be a regular person but, in fact, doesn't even literally exist is merely the latest version of this trick.

Fundamentally, there HAS to be a line between paid advertisements and actual unsolicited information. Or else all media as we know it becomes essentially worthless and there is no such thing as a trusted source ever again. It would be, in essence, voluntarily returning to Plato's Cave.

Re:Question . . .

[HappySqurriel]

A simple question in response to your question ...

Why is important to tell people who paid for a political comercial when it was played on TV?

The reason is simple, because it is reasonably simple to mislead people about the source and content of an advertizement. Consider the harm to a political campaign if people started making fake comercials for their opponents in order to make their supporters look stupid ("My name's Dan, and I think all these 'feminists' need is a good ing. I support John Smith because he believes a woman's place is in the kitchen.").

As comercials move away from being in comercial breaks and billboards to product placement and blogs it is important to tell people that they're being advertized to and who is doing the advertizement.

Consider the damage that would be done to the XBox had Sony created a fake blog on how to pick up 12 year old boys on XBox Live (and made sure that this got noticed on major news sites). If Sony got away with it, XBox Live could be killed by people's outrage.

Re:Question . . .

[GigsVT]

Unless the government does it in the form of fake news stories, then it's OK.

Re:Question . . .

[r3m0t]

Wake up - this happens all the time (or at for politics, over the phone, in the US election runup).

In the midterm elections 2006 I found on reddit and some other websites:
1) Repeated automated calls made "important information about Lois Murphy," or another particular candidate. They would continue with explanations on this person's terrible policies - by which time most people had hung up. FCC says the originating party must be identified at the *beginning* of the message - in this case it was at the end. These collected on answering machines in droves and people reported being called in the night-time repeatedly, and being called after they hung up. The calls were actually made by the opposing party. Some media reported it without mentioning the originating party in an attempt to spin the story into a non-party issue.
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:qXa897eiLfAJ: www.alternet.org/blogs/video/43955/+phone+calls+mi dterm+deceptive+LGBT&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1&clie nt=firefox-a
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/6/02926/ 3087

"The cost of these robo-call campaigns isn't high, although the fines that may accrue to the NRCC may be. The problem is, of course, that they don't care how much they have to pay after they've won. This tactic is being used in 15 districts, which is the number that the NRCC believes it needs to hold the House. These are the 15 districts that they believe are so close that voter suppression tactics can change the outcome."

2) "We are calling on behalf of the LGBT [Society or whatever]" and they would like to thank [candidate] for fully supporting them in every way. These calls were not made by the LGBT group nor by the candidate. It was obviously aimed at those who feel queasy about LGBT - but it never said its actual origins. The originators claimed they really *were* doing it for the LGBT group. Scum.

3) Voter suppression calls which say you aren't registered validly and that you may be arrested if you attempt to vote. (Obviously targeted at key districts so that on the balance of probabilities, the party ends up ahead.) Obviously these ones didn't state their origin either.

Re:Question . . .

[Sunburnt]

"Consider the harm to a political campaign if people started making fake comercials for their opponents in order to make their supporters look stupid ("My name's Dan, and I think all these 'feminists' need is a good ing. I support John Smith because he believes a woman's place is in the kitchen.")."

I need to move to whatever place you're describing. Political harm, you say? That ad could win votes in these parts.

Re:Question . . .

[r3m0t]

I forgot to mention push polls where the polling company only tells you who they are when you ask them. That hardly matters, though, because they literally read from a script (sometimes changing the order of the questions as instructed) and they refuse to tell you funded the poll.

One of them began with general local politics then honed in on one senator. It gave a series of facts about them, and asked how much each fact made you think more negatively about them (i.e. you selected between "very bad", "bad", "don't mind/OK").

One of the facts was that "they had made a donation to Friends of Islam". The "donation" was by going to a fundraising dinner to discuss whatever that organisation does. The other facts included similar stretches of the truth.

Santa says "what about ethical? ho ho ho!"

[Toby The Economist]

> Either way, it appears to be a profitable advertising model.

So is putting crack cocaine in your cola drink.

Which brings us neatly onto cigarette sales.

examples

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read many a customer review in my day and I swear that the NewEgg reviews for the Zune look fake. Do they have a method to verify that the reviewers even own the product?

Re:examples

[devilspgd]

Even if they did/do, it wouldn't be that hard for a manufacturer to buy a few dozen of their own product out of the marketing budget (and since they're in a position to resell those products, the cost is only the shipping and retailer markup) just to write the reviews.

Penny Arcade

[ParaphiliaNOS]

Penny arcade linked the Sony viral site wrong. They had a_psp when the real site is my_psp.
http://www.alliwantforchristmasismypsp.com/

Re:Penny Arcade

[HTH NE1]

Strange then that the title of the page says "a PSP". Saying "my PSP" jives with the "my two front teeth" it borrows from, but then it also implies that he wants his PSP back, PSP back, PSP back, which doesn't work either unless you pronounce "PSP" with only two syllables: "piss-pee back", and then you might as well replace the kid with William Murderface (Murderface Murderface).

Ha, I'm immune

[StikyPad]

since a) I don't talk to anybody, and b) even if I did, I wouldn't trust what they said.

Sigh.

You mean?

[BCW2]

I've been wrong when I thought all advertising was viral?

I was 15 hours short of a marketing degree when I realized i wasn't qualified, I have a conscience!

Re:You mean?

[Eagleartoo]

I've been wrong when I thought all advertising was viral?

I was 15 hours short of a marketing degree when I realized i wasn't qualified, I have a conscience!

wow . . .
That makes me cry a little, maybe that's why I feel myself dying inside a little more everyday.

Re:You mean?

[BCW2]

Don't cry, at least I found out before it was to late. Now I'm a tech/programmer.

Were all Slashdotters born yesterday?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Were all Slashdotters born yesterday, or just the original poster?

Previously, consumers themselves set the buzz. But lately advertisement firms are stepping up to the plate themselves, seeding the market with buzz that looks independent of the company, but is in fact funded by them.

For Christ's sake, this has been the way the world has worked for thousands of years. (Remember the story about John the Baptist starting the buzz about the "one who comes after"?)

"Consumers" have NEVER "set the buzz." If you think otherwise, I'd like to meet you, because there's a good chance you'll be buying whatever I'm pitching in 3-6 months. (And you'll think it was your idea too.)

Re:Were all Slashdotters born yesterday?

[cptgrudge]

Remember the story about John the Baptist starting the buzz about the "one who comes after"?

To be fair, John the Baptist wasn't getting paid for his zeal, and he was eventually beheaded by Herod Antipas, at the request of Herod's wife.

I don't think the execs of the company that made this "blog" would be quite willing to die for Sony.

Re:Were all Slashdotters born yesterday?

[HappySqurriel]

If you look at the following many dead (or unpopular) products have recieved you'll see that consumers quite often produce buzz for a product themselves. Star Trek, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Nintendo's Earthbound series all developed cult followings in North America without any encouragement from the companies that produced it; in fact there have been several attempts to get the (already completed) translation of earthbound games released in North America, since Nintendo has been unwilling to people have produced fan translations of these games to be played on emulators.

Not all fan buzz is fake, but much of it is ...

No Such Thing as Negative Publicity

[mandelbr0t]

I think a lot of viral marketing is based on the idea that there's no such thing as negative publicity. Judging by most people's reactions when they find out about such ploys, there really isn't. Someone always apologizes for the marketer, or talks about how clever the campaign was, or simply refuses to believe that the marketer is doing anything unethical. As someone pointed out, there *is* something unethical about these campaigns; they abuse the trust we place in someone for appearing to be independent from the organization, thus enabling them the ability to give what appears to be an unbiased review.

The only negative publicity we can deservedly give these hype-sters is non-publicity. Don't go nuts when a fraud or hoax is exposed; simply ignore it. You'll probably forget all about it in another week.

mandelbr0t

Re:No Such Thing as Negative Publicity

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, no.

What Sony is doing here is completely unethical. The sad thing is, there are many campaigns out there that do very similar things, but in a way most of us would consider completely ethical. There is advertising out there that uses fake blogs, among other things, as a way of being generous to their audience. They are games; they encourage people to play along and interact with their characters. They usually announce their affiliation coyly, so as not to ruin the illusion that the game creates. I Love Bees was the most successful example of this kind of game.

Now, I played the aforementioned game; and I have to admit that I was a little depressed when I realized I was playing an ad for Halo 2. But then I realized something: this company was giving me free entertainment, for months on end, with no pressure and no apparent expectation of selling me the game. They were doing it to bring me into the game's world, to make me part of a good story. And if that was enough for me, that was fine by them. It was a lot like TV, only better because I could watch it whenever I wanted and there were no ads that broke the flow of the story.

I Love Bees was an example of successful viral marketing. So was the Audi ARG (they had an A4 "stolen" from a showroom floor in New York - very cool) and Last Call Poker, a game promoting the multi-console game Gun. This Sony thing is NOT. It smacks of adolescent newbies trying to tap into the latest "hip" marketing ploy. It seems like Zipatoni spent more effort winning the bid for this campaign than actually working up something good.

Frankly, I'm worried that the FTC is going to ruin the good games and stories that are being released on the web. Technically, I Love Bees never said it was an ad for Bungie either - but to have Bungie's name on it would have ruined the experience for most people.

Viral

[Anonymous Coward]

Viral as i've always played it is using something like...

Come to my business..

We take a photo of you enjoying yourself.. (with your permission)

We make the photo available to you online...

We allow you to send the photo to your friends (or rather links to the photo).. ... you get the idea...

A business "planting buzz" is just that.. it's a gorilla technique but if it's paid for, it's paid for, and that isn't speech it is commercial speech.. I would like those two to be treated the same but the law doesn't see it that way..

Commercial speech that is misleading is usually called fraud.. The particular fraud would seem with "good buzz" to be aimed at lowering the transaction cost, the risk that some new product or service sucks... sucking in consumers to making purchases based on false endorcements and recommendations..

The age of the cynical bastard

[gosand]

My friends have long considered me to be a cynical bastard, because I always question the validity of everything. Nothing is ever what it seems, there is always some kind of not-so-well-hidden advertising, product pushing, and damn-near lying. It has turned me off of a lot of TV and music, and I generally get very irritated when I come across sneaky marketing and/or advertising. It makes it pretty hard to believe anything anymore, and really shows the power of how we present things. (not to mention the gullibility of most people) I don't shop and Wal*Mart because I think they are scumbags, I don't partake of anything Disney. But it seems that it is almost unavoidable these days.

Hell, I don't even know what my point is in posting... I guess I just wish that more people would question these things and take a stand against them, because that is the only way they'll go away. But most people just don't seem to care.

Re:The age of the cynical bastard

[StupidMBA]

It makes it pretty hard to believe anything anymore,....

You and me both!

And, I'd like to add, I have been burned by referals by friends and acquaintances. Sometimes, they're pretty crappy shoppers or don't know anything about the product. How many of you would go and get a recomendation for a computer from your grandma? Me niether.

Someimes folks like a product or service based on their own values - they may like cheap and aduquate and others prefer expensive and awesome service. I learned to ask really pointed questions about their opinion before considering it.

Re:The age of the cynical bastard

[jazman_777]

I guess I just wish that more people would question these things and take a stand against them, because that is the only way they'll go away. But most people just don't seem to care.

Most people's innards aren't being eaten out by caring themselves to death about minor things. Most people can not care about these things one whit, and their lives aren't ruined.

Re:The age of the cynical bastard

[oGMo]

My friends have long considered me to be a cynical bastard, because I always question the validity of everything. Nothing is ever what it seems, there is always some kind of not-so-well-hidden advertising, product pushing, and damn-near lying. [...] I don't shop and Wal*Mart because I think they are scumbags, I don't partake of anything Disney. But it seems that it is almost unavoidable these days.

Hell, I don't even know what my point is in posting...

Your post is probably some kind of not-so-well-hidden advertising, product pushing, or damn-near lying, if you ask me!!

Re:The age of the cynical bastard

[Xybot]

I know exactly how you feel.


Thats why I'd like to recommend the new KoolAid cure for modern day cynicism. It's called "Cynicool (tm)" and its FANTASTIC. Believe me I was misarable when I was like you, until I tried "Cynicool"!

Re:The age of the cynical bastard

[gosand]

Most people's innards aren't being eaten out by caring themselves to death about minor things. Most people can not care about these things one whit, and their lives aren't ruined.

Hmm, no, they do care about minor things... like what toys their kids have, or if they have seen the latest and greatest blockbuster movie event of the year, which critics agree you can't afford to miss. When you don't buy into all this hype, it is painfully obvious when you encounter people do. They carry on discussions about Tom Cruise or some other who-gives-a-crap celebrity as if they really know them, and as if whomever they are dating actually MEANS something in their own lives. Their kids spout off catch-phrases right out of the commercials... they know all the brand names, and what they "should" be consuming. They go into debt to buy all new stainless steel appliances and a huge SUV, because that is what proves that you have class.

It is sickening to me. Do I sit and wring my hands thinking about it? No. I feel sorry for those people. They seem weak to me, like they are unable to think for themselves. It is also funny. I try not to be a mean person, but people are just absolutely ridiculous sometimes.

Yet, ask them why we are still in Iraq, spending their kids and grandkids future, and they say it's to fight terrorists. Luckily, THREE YEARS LATER, some people are waking up a little. What amazes me is that they think that our F'up of a president is just starting to mess up. He hasn't changed, he was like this from the beginning - you dumbasses just refused to see it because you were too busy planning your trip to Disneyland with your $300 tax refund. You believed what you were told because you were too lazy to use your brain and think for yourselves!!!

So buying into the marketing mindset may seem like a very minor thing. But look at the whole picture. This country was marketed a war, bought it, and was happy about it! Happy enough to re-elect the person who single-handedly sold it to them. (with help, because he isn't smart enough to do it himself) Sometimes I wonder if I am just getting older, and everything is just scary and strange to me now. But I think I have a pretty good handle on things. It isn't like I am pointing out things that aren't messed up. I find it disheartening that so many people in this country are so gullible, and that they just don't care. Maybe it is because we are the fat, lazy, clueless dolts that the rest of the world sees. And getting up out of your Lazy-Boy and chanting 'USA! USA!' isn't really doing a whole lot to change that.

I'm off to listen to Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name' and then 'Wake Up' now. :)

I heard about this...

[Clever7Devil]

...And let me tell you guys: This new program from the FTC is excellent. Don't listen to what those Capitalism(TM) and Free Speech(TM) fanboi's tell you.

OT: Community redemption.

[Spaceman40]

[Is] [Slashdot] trying to [redeem] itself after being conned into an instance of viral marketing?

No. Let me remind you how our system works:
1. Person finds something they think is cool.
2. Person submits link and story to Slashdot.
3. Slashdot editors do a quick read to see if it's not blatantly inaccurate or uninteresting.
4. Editors put the story up.
5. Readers check the story out.
5. a. At least one reader looks into (or already knows) the background of the article.
5. b. At least one reader looks into (or already knows about) the subject of the article.
5. c. At least one reader looks into (or has already speculated about) the ramifications of the article.
6. We discuss.

That's the point: the community decision for the article you linked was that it was a guerilla campaign. When I read that article, I didn't realize it was such, I assumed the same as the editors. Fortunately, there's a large community here, several of which commented that not all was as it seemed, and I was enlightened.

Yay for community discussion. Articles aren't generally statements that the community makes, they're statements that the community responds to. That's why us old timers (and I'm a young'un, at that) are still here.

Re:OT: Community redemption.

[nomadic]

3. Slashdot editors do a quick read to see if it's not blatantly inaccurate or uninteresting.

Heehee. Oh wait, you're being serious?

Re:OT: Community redemption.

[wile_e_wonka]

Still, though... fitting timing...

Re:OT: Community redemption.

[illuminatedwax]

But at the very least they could put an update on the story on the front page.

Updates on TechCrunch

[otisg]

Yeah. Look for updates to this over on TechCrunch - here.

De Beers, Viral Marketing Since 1888

[Ranger]

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you to find that deceptive advertising is going on. I mean it's not like they, as in the ubiquitious they, think people are malleable, easily led astray, brainwashed, etc, etc.

De Beers has the longest running viral marketing campaign in history. It started in the 1880's and is still going strong today.

Re:De Beers, Viral Marketing Since 1888

[Sunburnt]

That Atlantic article about DeBeers was brilliant. Paying thousands for a chunk of cut carbon always seemed ridiculous to me, and its a fascinating reading abut how the whole consumer perspective on diamonds' value is a tenuous marketing scheme, successful for almost a century.

Another despicable instance of top-down commercial culture having actual material consequence. Tragic.

Half the people here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, start 'fessing up to it - about half of you are M$ shills, aren't you?

May also affect affiliates

[Esteanil]

This might go beyond merely corporations. Affiliates may also be required to disclose the fact that they're paid for their links.
Or, more specifically, the affiliate networks & companies involved may be forced to require affiliates to do, since the networks/companies are the ones who'll be getting the fines.
Read Copyblogger's excellent post on this subject for more details.

Isn't Viral marketing...

[camperdave]

I thought viral marketing meant that you use your product to advertise your product. For example, Yahoo mail always has a link at the bottom allowing the recipient to sign up for their own yahoo mail account. If you get a geocities webpage, it will have a link for your website viewers to sign up for a geocities account. In other words, the service provider is using you to advertise their product as you move around in your online world (via email, or websites, avatars, or whatever. It is the electronic equivalent of having an alligator on your golf shirt, or a swoosh on your shoes.

Divided Opinion

[twifosp]

I'm torn.

Part of me wants to think this is a good thing. That consumers don't deserve to have products shoved down their throats and be saturated by advertisement all day long. This part of me also thinks that if companies could, they would advertise directly into our dreams ala that one Futarama episode: http://www.futurama-madhouse.com.ar/scripts/1acv06 .shtml

Fry: So you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?
Leela: Of course.
Fry: But, how is that possible?
Farnsworth: It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg. [He holds up an egg and injects it with liquid. The egg explodes, covering him and Leela in yolk.] Although, in reality, it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.
Fry: That's awful. It's like brainwashing.

Allthough the other part of me thinks that you get what you deserve. If you aren't smart enough to make your own purchasing decisions and are easily swayed by ANY marketing, be it on the Television, Radio, directly in your brian, or some hobo on the subway telling you how bad ass the new PSP is; then as a fool, you deserve to be parted with your money.

Re:Divided Opinion

[css-hack]

Perhaps after a certain point, people do deserve what they get. I have two problems with giving up so soon, though:

• We live in a society where critical-thinking skills are never even taught. Many people never even have the opportunity to learn how to seperate the wheat from the chaff (or valuable information from the empty rhetoric). This is a problem that needs solving first.
• Because so many people are influenced by the advertising coming from every direction, companies will continue to produce it. More and more by the day. And I have to watch it.
  (No, hiding away in the woods with my head in a hole is not an acceptable alternative.)

Looks like all the shills are coming out...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with all the negative reactions? Are all the shills coming out, worried that they'll have to get a real job instead of being paid to post on slashdot, or what?

Deceptive advertising is deceptive advertising no matter what medium carries it. The government is right to crack down on this kind of fraudulant business practice, because it damages the free market by denying people the ability to make informed decisions regarding their economic activity. Remember, the free market works on the principle that individuals know best (certainly better than government) how to allocate their resources, and that these individual choices will, in aggregate, result in a more efficient distribution of resources/wealth than any command economy. This breaks down if deceptive marketing tactics prevent individuals from knowing best. A corporate command economy is no better than a government command economy.

Re:Looks like all the shills are coming out...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disregard that, I suck cocks.

Not necessarily...

[KingSkippus]

The alternative to advertising is paying more for things.

My devil's advocate reaction to this is, "not necessarily." If company X didn't have to spend a billion dollars to counteract company Y's $900 million advertising budget, they could use that money to help save consumers dollars. Or they could put it into R&D and engineering to actually make a better product instead of just telling us it's a better product.

Also, I (and a lot of other people) are more than willing to pay a premium for ad-less products. Does anyone remember the days way back when most cable channels didn't have ads? Now you have to pay the cable company for channels with ads, and the channels that don't have ads are very expensive. (Yet notice how they still have a lot of subscribers for that premium.)

I myself don't watch ads on television at all. Every show I want to watch, I either get via iTunes download for $2 a pop (or a season subscription), or by less scrupulous means that I don't want to go into if it's not available by any other means (wink, wink). I have a few small web sites I run for personal reasons, and I buy the hosting space at a reasonable non-free price so that I don't have to subject my visitors to a barrage of ads. I run Firefox with AdBlock so that I can avoid as many ads as possible while browsing the Internet.

I still run across ads now and then, as they're unavoidable in society. The point, though, is that I still spend plenty my share of disposable income, companies still make plenty of money off of me, but they have to do it by actually having products of decent quality that I want or need, not by yelling in both my ears constantly.

In other words, there is another way.

Personally, I think the best advertising any company can have is virtually free. It's from friends who have products and tell me about them. It's from reputable website reviews that describe up-and-coming technology and products. It's from companies' own websites that provide as much real information about products I'm interested in as I need to make an informed decision. All of these things are dirt cheap compared to the billions that companies spend on radio, television and web ads that I never see or hear. Go figure.

A better solution would be to teach children how to think critically

Amen.

Re:Not necessarily...

[nasch]

I still run across ads now and then, as they're unavoidable in society.

That's just barely true! I browse with Firefox's adblocker so I can't remember the last time I saw a web ad. I watch 100% of television using a DVR, so I don't watch TV ads either. I don't go to the movies (2 small children) so don't see those ads. I listen exclusively to NPR so nothing there unless you count the sponsorship messages from the guy with the nasal voice. I don't live somewhere that has billboards, so I don't see those. I don't read the newspaper. The only ads I see are in my magazines, and those are extremely easy to skip. So I'm almost completely ad-free, and loving it.

Re:Not necessarily...

[Anonymous Coward]

So in this utopian adless world, how does one run a profitable newspaper that isn't exuberantly priced? If you get rid of ads, say goodbye to anything ad-funded.

crap, will I get fined?

[Anonymous Coward]

in a lame attempt at humorous viral marketing I earlier wrote a comment on Slashdot that Republican hackers were threatening to delete my mp3 collection unless people read my blog.

you can find that comment here:

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211606&cid =17228420

suppose a lot of people start passing that around by email and in blog posts and it "goes viral" - will I get in trouble?

Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[ml10422]

I'm a grown-up. I don't need the Federal government to protect me from viral advertising.

For my entire life, I've been exposed to celebrity endorsements, and the only effect has been to fine tune my bullshit filter.

Please refund the portion of my taxes that is going to paying these guys salaries.

Re:Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[AK Marc]

'm a grown-up. I don't need the Federal government to protect me from viral advertising.

Well, then you think it should be ok for ad campaigns to be focused on lies? "Viral" starts with someone misrepresenting themselves. I see "advertisement" at the bottom of pages in magazines that look like articles but are advertiesments. Why can't I get such identification in other places? I don't want the marketing necessarily stopped, but I just want the lies identified. Make it illegal to purposefully lie to promote products, and viral marketing is dead. They are all based off falsehoods.

Re:Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[ml10422]

OK, let's think a second about how you would actually go about catching advertisers in lies. Outright lies might be easy to catch. But, this viral marketing stuff is in that fuzzy area, very much like celebrity endorsements.

Re:Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[Anonymous Coward]

"Viral" starts with someone misrepresenting themselves.

So what? Are they making false claims about the product? If not, then why should I care if they misrepresented themselves as my friend? Am I somehow harmed more if I buy a lousy product based on a stranger's advice, rather than my friend's advice? The fact is, I'm buying the product, not the salesmen. I care about the claims the salesmen makes about the product, not the claims the salesmen makes about himself.

Re:Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[AK Marc]

I care about the claims the salesmen makes about the product, not the claims the salesmen makes about himself.

Then you are unique. In court, they can address the "character" of a witness because the value of the statements made are dependent on the value of the person making them. But perhaps you think yourself smarter than the legal system, as well as just about everyone else on the planet that does take into account the speaker when evaluating statements made.

Re:Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that, from the perspective of the consumer, the character of the salesmen should factor into the question of, "Should I trust him or not when he says this is a good product?" However, from the perspective of the legal system, the question should be, "Has the salesmen made a false claim about the product?" If no false claims about the product were made, then the sell was fair, and no harm was done. People lie all the time (e.g. cheating on your spouse), but I don't think a lie should be a criminal offense unless it leads to physical harm or an unfair trade of property. If a salesman's lie didn't involve a false claim about the product, then it's pretty tough to convince me that his lie should be a criminal offense.

Re:Protect Me, Oh Federal Government

[AK Marc]

I don't think a lie should be a criminal offense unless it leads to physical harm or an unfair trade of property. If a salesman's lie didn't involve a false claim about the product, then it's pretty tough to convince me that his lie should be a criminal offense.

So a false claim about a salesman led to unfair trade, that's ok. If a false claim about a company led to unfair trade, that's ok. But if the false claim is about the product, then it's not ok. We both believe it is not ok to lie to sell a product, the only point of contention is which lies may be allowed. I think that all commercial speech must be truthful.

PR, Advertising, Lies, & Universal Deciet

[b.burl]

We have created a system that institutionalizes lies and deception and has created universal suspicion. The public relations industry, and thats what this story is really about, reaches into EVERY aspect of our lives. One of its fundamental tenets is that good pr is totally invisible. If the mark knows he is being fed pr sh1t, his defenses go up. It is truly an insidious profession. Anyone remember the Hill & Knowlton Kuwaiti/Iraqi war effort? If not, they invented the story about the iraqi soldiers removing premature babies from incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor. They even had people testify before congress. It was the single most emotional reson that swung public opinion behind the war. Yet no one went to jail because of it. Then there is pr news stories that are broadcast as news stories, etc etc.

To see how a jounalist dissects a pr movement, you might want to check out the excellent book: Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign. It is quite sobering.

I'll leave you with a quote from Orwell: "In a time of universal deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." And we are currently drowing in bullsh1t.

A Model For Meme Propagation

[broward]

A model for understanding how and why memes propagate across the Internet. I originally intended this as a supplement to my Meme Miner tool, to validate its predictions, but it's coming in handy for other reasons.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry =updated_ideospheric_sampling_model

ilovebees

[oGMo]

Because when Microsoft, who funds SCO, makes shady deals followed by spurious claims engages in viral marketing, it's OK.

But when Sony, who delivers Linux on their console does it, it's BAD.

Yeah must be Wednesday again.

Re:ilovebees

[iainl]

If Microsoft were using the original I Love Bees site to sell bees, using a fictional woman to advocate their products, I'd see your point.

But I think just about everyone knew that this was something Bungie were up to, because they found it in the first place on the trailer.

Which is just a tad different from someone going "Yay, PSPs are brilliant, and I'm not being paid to say so!" when they are.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

What a splendid pie,
Pizza-pizza pie,
Every minute, every second,
Buy, buy, buy, buy buy.
What a splendid pie,
Pizza-pizza pie,
Every minute, every second,
Buy, buy, buy, buy buy.

Pepperoni and green peppers,
Mushrooms olive, chives,
Pepperoni and green peppers,
Mushrooms olive, chives.

Need therapy, therapy,
Advertising causes need,
Therapy, therapy,
Advertising causes need,
Therapy, therapy,
Advertising causes,
Therapy, therapy,
Advertising causes,
Therapy, therapy.
Advertising causes...
Therapy, therapy
Advertising causes,

Well advertising's got you on the run,
Need therapy, therapy advertising causes,
Well advertising's got you on the run,
Need therapy, therapy advertising causes,
Well advertising's got you on the run,
Advertising's got you on the run,
Advertising's got you on the run,
Advertising's got you on the run.

Mod Parent up

[IgLou]

I couldn't have said this better myself.

I hate this whole free speech arguement being brought in. It's a business producing commercial speech it should be regulated as such!
Well said!

Cynicism or Critical Thinking?

[css-hack]

Critical Thinking, in my experience, is often written off as Cynicism by people who don't understand see the importance in thinking for themselves. These people are either in denial about their reality, or are honestly lacking the skills needed to examine it.

I find it hard to understand how anybody watching could miss the (usually obvious) manipulation tactics used in the media every day. People seem to have a very high tolerance for being manipulated and lied to.

The most recent ad that's got my goat is a TV commercial for some subsidiary of Virgin Group. It very explicitly depicts evil men in suits being overpowered the beauty of nature, a colourful fish reversing the flow of toxic waste, plants and animals growing. It uses happy music and bright colours and is very obviously trying to say "we're really sticking it to the man!"

This isn't technically a lie, but come on! It irritates me that it's socially acceptable to be so completely dishonest. It irritates me further that so many people can't see what's going on.

Such blatant dishonesty and trickery as is used in all forms of advertising seems to undermine the entire idea of communication in the first place. Instead of encouraging cooperation, it creates an us-against-them situation where the them (the public at large) don't even know they've got to be on guard.

Thanks for the rootkit, Sony.....

[Anonymous Coward]

and thanks for insulting my intelligence with your fake blog. Can I please have that kick in the
balls now?

Investiage

[mattwarden]

This new term will catch on like... like a... a bacterial infection.

A few problems with that...

[dslauson]

In the literal sense, corporations do not speak. People who work for them do.

Let's say I work for a studio that is producing a new movie. If I go out on a movie forum and say "Have you heard about this movie that's coming up? It's going to be pretty cool!!!", that could be considered viral marketing.

So, what if it's true, and I really believe it? Even if it's not, you can't prove that it's false or misleading. An opinion, by definition, is subjective.

Also, where do you draw the line? I'm a software engineer. Am I not allowed to say good things about my company's products when I'm making the rounds at Christmas parties? Do I have to preface it every time with, "FYI: I'm an employee of X company, and my opinions my be influenced by that."

And, if it was mandatory to identify yourself, that's very difficult to enforce. Online, it's easy to be relatively anonymous. And, if I'm talking about my product and I don't properly identify myself, what are you going to do, throw me in jail? Fine me? What is a fitting punishment for the crime of stating an opinion in the improper way?

I can see your point that it can be misleading and untruthful. However, regulating it is impractical and unfeasible, not to mention clearly contrary to the first amendment (I don't think your comparison to insider trading laws really holds water).

It is each of our jobs as an internet citizen to determine what information on the web is good, and what is total crap. That's the way it's always been, and I genuinely hope it remains that way so that we don't start down the slippery slope toward internet censorship.

Re:A few problems with that...

[dgatwood]

Where the law draws the line is based on whether A. you are truly a customer or not (if not, this MUST be disclosed), and B. whether you received additional compensation in exchange for voicing your opinions.

I can represent my personal opinions about products made by my employer, and as long as they are my opinions and I have actually purchased or used the products, that's legal. If I represent them as being someone else's opinions, that is fraudulent and is not legal. If I am not really a customer or user, then that is illegal (assuming I was asked by the company or a representative thereof to do so) since I am implicitly representing myself as a customer/user of their products by expressing my opinion of them. If I am being paid by my employer to offer my opinion, I must disclose that payment or it is illegal.

So no, at your company Christmas party, you're fine. When you go talking about it on the Internet, you're fine as long as your company didn't pay you to say what you said. (Actually, you're probably fine in any case. The company could get sued if they paid you to say it and you/they didn't disclose the relationship. Of course, if it was in your contract that you would disclose it but you failed to do so, then they could sue you for violating your contract.)

However, it may be an ethical conflict of interest on your part, so you ethically should disclose the relationship unless you already held that opinion of the product prior to employment. Depending on your profession, an ethical violation might carry some weight (e.g. being disbarred, losing your medical license, and so on).

Re:A few problems with that...

[Sj0]

You're not getting paid to be at the party and talk about how great your product is; you're not an actor, and that's the distinction here, at least for me. Walking down the street hearing conversations, having a beer with your buddies and overhearing some guy having a conversation -- are these people real, or are they just actors trying to get you to hear about their product?

As far as I'm concerned, no company should be allowed to engage in a mindfuck that severe.

Re:A few problems with that...

[budgenator]

If your a software eng at company X, your endorsement of the products you produce of course carry more weight the the opinion of one of your sales weenies, personally I'd find the lack of endorsement more troubling. I know that I like to use the products I make as much as possible, so that I can give more realistic evaluations to clients, and when I do speak to people I don't find it difficult to let them know my professional relationships. I know a bunch of engineers and even assembly line workers who work for Daimler-Chrysler, GM and Ford; they are all proud of their products and will brag about them and they are proud to be employees and will let you know that as well.

Re:A few problems with that...

[KORfan]

What if you're a known celebrity, and you're paid to use your commercial television program to promote something?

What if it's the government paying you to promote something, such as an executive plan?

What if you're Anderson Cooper?

Re:A few problems with that...

[Sj0]

Video News Releases and other government-sponsored propaganda are more reprehensible than this, but just because the people in power are bad doesn't mean that these advertisers aren't also bad. Face facts, it's likely the same damn people giving advice to both groups.

Question on the Global Registrar

[Spaceman40]

The point is that a global registrar, aka the yellow pages, in real time, with no flashy larger adverts available, just the facts with the option to delve further into relevant op-ed pieces is all that would be needed to find goods and services, and that if we as a global society should create one and use it, we could outlaw invasive advertising entirely and not be forced to accept this assault on our senses and our [children's] senses.

Do you think that eBay, Amazon, or CraigsList fulfill this role?

Re:Question on the Global Registrar

[ShieldW0lf]

I'd say they're certainly steps in the right direction.

CraigsList is interesting in that they for the most part do not have a vested interest in the success or failure of the seller in the market; if everyone keeps checking with craigslist but no one buys anything from most of the sellers because their products suck, craigslist has no vested interest in "fixing" that in any area except the narrow realty market they are using for their funding, which could give them the kind of impartiality that would be ideal, but they're crippled by a lack of accountability, enforcability and fact checking.

I would say, you take something like craigslist, add more structure to it, have the UN or some not-yet-existant world body subsidise it (rather than a narrow band of realtors) so there is no systemic vested interest in people buying more or less from the sellers, add transparency to the finances, accountability for the factualness of all information presented, enforcability for the offers and deals made, and you're getting close to the sort of supporting infrastructure you'd want to have in place before you went ahead and said "no more invasive advertising".

People do wish to be informed of genuinely new things that come available, and they will actively take time from their day to take a look and see what sort of interesting things are out there.

They don't currently get the capacity to intelligently do that with modern advertising. All the new things you get informed about amounts to a new and improved soap on the market, which doesn't clean you better, but rather qualifies as new only because it has a different shaped container and improved only because it is now blue instead of white, which is much prettier don't you think?

Then we can hire all those experts psychologists in the advertising industry who know how to subtly manipulate and bamboozle people to ensure that it doesn't happen, and hire all the artists and designers to use their talents to bring clarity where there is complexity rather than use misdirection to sow unwarrented conclusions.

I figure you need to structure things so that the skilled participants in the existing system will have a valued place in the new structure of things for the sort of fundimental changes being discussed here to work.

Obligatory Futurama:

[Anonymous Coward]

Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?"
Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on tv and radio...and in
magazines...and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons,
and t-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams!
No sirree."
    -- Futurama

Viral Marketing != Astroturfing

[AHumbleOpinion]

Well, at least viral marketing can be killed instantly by the negative karma that comes about when the blatant lies of this being an 'enthusiast's user opinion' are uncovered.

Viral marketing does not require astroturfing. A company can legitimately engage in viral marketing by being supportive of actual users and fans.

One word: Zune.

[jcr]

This is a non-issue. People will buy or not buy what they like, and all the astroturfing in the world can't polish a turd.

-jcr

MS is a big fan of this

[Anonymous Coward]

These sort of ads are making me cynical. I sent the following email to a mate of mine:


http://www.1up.com/do/my1Up?publicUserId=5809893

Does a chick this hot really have a blog on a games site or is this some bullshit viral marketing ploy.


To which he replied:


NO SHIT, this is quite funny that you send me this today! quinn just showed me this girls photos on a dating stie yesterday and said that no one ever gets a reply from her. Shes probably dead and so lost all rights to her images, well thats a bit dark. Man she's hot other wise.....might send into her add lol


IANAL but isn't it illegal intentionally mislead people with advertising?

Re:MS is a big fan of this

[RLiegh]

Gearing Up For a Gaming Session
posted at 12/07/2006 10:09 PM PST
  9 Thumbs
I know I always have my usual ritual I go through before I sit down for a gaming session. Be it 1 hour or 15, I need to be prepared. It wasn't till I started hanging around more gamers, that I noticed EVERYONE has their own checklist they run through before the console is powered up. I will let you in on my ritual, and maybe you can share yours as well...

1. Food - Snacks are a MUST when gaming with me. My personal favorite has always been the Bold and Zesty Chex mix... Followed closely by Salt and Vinegar chips... MMMmmm...
[image of chex mix, with brand prominently displayed[

2. Caffeine - Any kind... Must have it! Either doing the Dew or meeting Juan Valdez for that perfect cup of coffee, There has to be caffeine around and in immediate proximity!
[image of a starbuck's brand cup of coffee, with logo prominent and a slogan (starbucks is now open in your neighborhood) in the corner]

3. Comfortable Seat - After the food and drink are covered, its off to find a nice plush palace for my ass to sit in while I am blasting away on GoW. Now, at my place, I'll kick people out of my favorite seat. At a friends place, I'll search till I find the spot and will not let it go. I'm deadly when it comes to keeping my ass comfy. I may need to get one of these...

4. Celebration Dance - Oh yes! I actually think of a new celebration dance to do each week when I totally kick someones ass on a game. Haha! I wish you guys could have seen some of the ones in the past... Good times! (Even if there is no one around, I still do it to the screen!)

Well, that about sums it up for me. After my checklist has been satisfied, its on! Turn it on and let the games begin!

Two out of the four items on 'her' list were blatant adverts, and the copy for the rest of the 'blog' was amusingly stilted ("A few of my girlfriends and I went to a party the other night and on the TV was a show called "Smackdown". I was sitting there thinking to myself, "What is the entertainment value of this?""). I'm not sure wether to laugh or grab a kleenex tissue and cry into my Budweiser.

Re:MS is a big fan of this

[geminidomino]

I'm not sure wether to laugh or grab a kleenex tissue and cry into my Budweiser.

Dude, she's HOT. Don't waste the kleenex by crying into it.

When did it become OT?

[Scrameustache]

If they want to investigate deceptive advertising that has cost Americans billions of dollars, then I would prefer that they investigate the Iraq war. Well, for the Trade comission to investigate that false advertising, they would need to be an interrested party that stood to profit from it and that you can also link to someone responsible for the deception.

Viral Marketing Day on /.

[j_f_chamblee]

Am I the only one amused by the fact that /.ers posted an article about the FTC investigating viral marketing on the same day we posted an apparently bogus story that turned out to probably be a viral marketing ploy?

Why not move onto the true evil?

[GregNorc]

One thing I hate is marketing directed at children... technically speaking, a child cannot legally enter into a contract. But they can beg their parents for a product. If children truly can't make informed decisions, an assertion I agree with, then it logically follows that advertising to such persons should be 100% illegal.

InvestIAGE?, rant.

[Goner]

I'm sure 50 people have already commented on this, but come on. It appears in the tag and the headline as investiage. What? Investia-wha? huh?

In other Federal trade commissioning news the FTC is going to investiagitate its relevance to Funeral Homes: FTC Tests Funeral Homes for Compliance With Funeral Rule; New Brochure Explains Consumer Rights Under Federal Law note, new brochure has been published. As a person who, in my years of experience has put together something on the order of a brochure, I know that it is a non-trivial amount of work, so if you or someone you love is planning on a funeral, I suggest you pick up this informative booklet.

On the note of viral marketing the following stream of consciousness riff; I'm a Pepper, less filling, where's the beef, <psp graff>, ok go!, my street team (currently putting stickers on your local gray metal municipal boxes), this video (marketing my current 'hood as a nice place for a monday drive), suburban blend, {yahoo cool site of the day, justin's links from the underground, memepool, metafilter, fark, digg, del.icio.us, reddit} oh it's six o'clock a decade later... I guess it's time to go home again.

beedoop.

The Original Post is Totally Missing the Point

[Nommus]

Viral marketing is quite often an attempt to encourage users to pass on your marketing material without any financial inducement.

As soon as there is an additional incentive, it becomes much more like affiliate marketing.

Some incentives might be included that are not financial, such as unlocking access if you get 3 friends to sign up.

The biggest problem with the FTC statement is with Affiliate marketing, especially where a marketer is offering a recommendation regarding a specific product, with the ability to link directly through to that product with a CPA or affiliate link.

On stuff like this you listen to lawyers, and consult with them if you are in any kind of internet business.

Here are some references to what 2 lawyers have written about this.

http://www.copywritersblog.com/2006/12/13/ftc-crac ks-down-on-word-of-mouth-advertising/
http://www.copyblogger.com/affiliate-marketing-dis closure-now-required-by-law/

This affects Amazon, Google, Ebay, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Linkshare and a host of other billion dollar companies that allow affiliates to link directly through to a particular product or service with a recommendation.

Disclosure: I practice disclosure on my blogs and use affiliate links recommending products, and have an interest with this as I just launched a disclosure policy plugin for Wordpress. It is available free of charge and is GPLed

Lie?

[jefu]

"In advertising there is no such thing as a lie, there is only expedient exaggeration."
Roger O Thornhill (played by Cary Grant) in "North by Northwest".

This is a great story

[StoatBringer]

Hey guys, I'm finding reading this story really easy on the bright, crisp screen on my new white Apple MacBook laptop (with a whopping 2Gb of fast RAM that was simple for me to install, without voiding my warranty). Anyway, thanks for an interesting read, and now I'm off to surf some internets while downloading excellent tracks from iTunes thanks to my Apple MacBook's excellent multitasking capabilities.

If lying isn't involved, ARG != viral marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

You, as well as a couple of other commenters here on /., seem to be confused about the what viral marketing is.

ilovebees was not viral marketing. Why ? Because every player was fully aware it was a promotional game for Halo 2, right from the start.

The site was linked from a Halo 2 trailer, for crying out loud ! There was no doubt whatsoever regarding the origin and the purpose of the site : every person who took part in the game knew it was part of a Microsoft/Bungie marketing campaign for an upcoming game. I'll grant you that it wasn't explicitely said, but the origin of the link and the setting of the game were enough to clear any lingering doubt for anyone with half a brain.

On the other hand, viral marketing is, for example, someone praising (or badmouthing) a product while pretending s/he is an everyday Jane/Joe expressing her/his own opinion (while s/he is actually an actor part of a marketing ploy). This is so widely hated because the very foundation of viral marketing is deception : advertising trying to pass off as the genuine opinion of an independent consumer. That's low as shit.

Trust me when I say I dislike MSFT as much as the next /.er, but the Halo ARG wasn't viral marketing because there was no deception.

Now that I gave you the tools to identify viral marketing, let me say this as an aside :

It kind of pains me to admit it because I can't stand the Xbox Halo games, but ilovebees was brilliant and a very good example of how good an ARG can be (although it wasn't very effective as advertising, because I still loathe Halo). ARG amateurs had a really good reason to take part in this game, even if it was advertising. MSFT gained something, but the players did too.

alliwantforxmasismypsp, on the other hand, is so dumb it's insulting. It's shit. It's only good at arousing curiosity, and time spent checking it out is wasted because it doesn't offer anything. It's eating away your time and it's a net loss because you have nothing to gain in exchange for your participation in the ad campaign (unwitting participation, remember, that's precisely why it's viral marketing, wolf in sheep's clothing).

You're deceiving yourself

[LunaticTippy]

There are ads in TV shows and movies. There are ads in every retail store. I see ads on buses, storefronts, people's clothing, and in every house I've visited.

I'm repulsed by this parasitic ubiquitous curse, but I don't delude myself that I'm ad-free just because I skip ads and use filterset G.

Off-topic

[JackOfAllGeeks]

Yeah. I had had a couple more points to make in that last post (like how he has NO place to judge you because he knows next to NOTHING about you), but could literally feel my blood pressure sky-rocketing, so I cut short. I'm out.