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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."
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?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
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!
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.
Type conversion error: Can't convert type Person to type Opinion in statement (-11273).
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
It's been a long time.