Viral Marketing Breeding Cynicism

New Media Blogger writes "First Lonelygirl15, now Bridezilla. Canada's National Post provides an interesting perspective on the newest trend of using viral videos as marketing tools, and how these fake blogs or 'flogs' are having a pernicious effect on our tendency to trust what seems genuine."

Comments

This forces us to be more discerning

[lecithin]

How is this a bad thing?

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people can't be more discerning, especially when they're looking at topics that aren't close to them. If you don't have the insight that enables you to tell marketing from honest opinion, you can only choose a level of general distrust that affects both. Increasing amounts of viral marketing and affiliate advertising will raise that level of distrust and that means people become more cynic, which is not a nice state, if you think about it.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[rocjoe71]

Very true! ...Wag the Dog.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[suv4x4]

This forces us to be more discerning. How is this a bad thing?

Indeed. And not just that. What kind of advertisement do you prefer: the marketoid speak, bland, noisy, blinking commercial spots rotated a hundred times on every channel every day, or more game-like advertising, which is fun on its own, and tries to show some practical usage of the advertised product?

I personally am sick of the "old school" commercial spots and would trade them for anything any day.

Of course it's important to differentiate deceptive viral marketing (ex. Sony's PSP "blog") and scams (ex. "Neuronet" virtual reality networks) and the harmless reality-game-like advertising, where the creators would reveal themselves as part of the plan (like the Bridezilla spot).

I would really rather them post those videos on their official sites as entertainment marketing their products, but truth is that while this generated hype, people will abuse it. The novelty will wear off and they will move on to a newer technique.

The difference may come as hard to discern in the general case of viral marketing, but quite important.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Mike1024]

How is this a bad thing?

If it creates both (a) discerning people and (b) the need for people to be discerning, it seems disingenuous to praise it for making people more discerning.

By the same logic you could say muggers are good because they force people to be more alert.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

Then ask a friend who knows or even one who's a specialist.

If you want a new PC, ask someone who knows those things, etc.

The tendency, of course, should be to educate yourSELF, so you can know more on your own.

Some people like being stupid, and serves them right.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

caffeine makes people more alert, does that mean caffeine is bad?

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[CrackedButter]

Having been mugged myself, I should have thanked the dude as he ran off with my 65p.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[tverbeek]

The fact that Anybody At All believed that {LonelyGirl15 was genuine/Taco Bell bought the Liberty Bell/Saddam Hussein had WMDs} demonstrates that people will fall for just about anything.

Deceptive marketing is only good in the sense that chicken pox is good: by exposing people to it and giving them a chance to develop a resistance to it, their chances are improved of not succumbing whe exposed to even worse stuff (i.e. lying political leaders).

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[ichigo 2.0]

Caffeine is bad.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[ultranova]

Then ask a friend who knows or even one who's a specialist.

How does your friend know it ? How can you know his knowledge didn't come from viral marketing ? How do you know the specialist is actually a genuine specialist and not a cleverly placed viral marketeer, and if he is a specialist, that he hasn't been bribed ?

If you want a new PC, ask someone who knows those things, etc.

How do you know he isn't getting paid to recommend Dell or some other crappy brand ? And how do you know I'm not getting paid to say bad things about Dell every chance I get ?-)

The tendency, of course, should be to educate yourSELF, so you can know more on your own.

How can you educate yourself when you have no way of telling truthful sources from viral marketing ?

Some people like being stupid, and serves them right.

Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Besides that, if you have no way to know which sources to trust, you have no way to get rid of that ignorance. That is the problem with viral marketing.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Mike1024]

caffeine makes people more alert, does that mean caffeine is bad?

Caffeine (a) makes people more alert, but does not (b) create the need for people to be more alert.

Therefore my argument doesn't apply.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

One word: Tupperware. Marketing is already aiming to exploit existing friendships and peer groups. This is much more problematic online, where people never meet eachother and can start over with hardly a problem if they need to. The circle of people whom you can trust is shrinking because everybody earns a commission these days. The alternative is, as you said: educate yourself. Unfortunately you can't educate yourself to be an expert in every field. There just isn't enough time.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Alef]

How is this a bad thing?

I read somewhere that the trust people place in random strangers is a very important property for a well functioning society. It allows transactions to run smoothly. If you always expect to get scammed, getting anything done would be a nightmare. (Game theory is probably applicable here.) Interestingly, the research also indicated that it is more important that people trust each other than that they actually can trust each other -- that is, it is the perceived ability to trust others that matters. That is why this is a bad thing.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[msobkow]

It sounds like the same problem that affected the old NEWS feeds that pre-dated the web. As more and more spam and "teaser" marketing were done, people stopped using it as a medium. Eventually all you seemed to find were a few die-hard posters who wouldn't accept the death of that broadcast digital medium, and those who saw nothing wrong with "teaser" content that links advertising info (usually just a website URL) to the content.

I haven't "surfed" the old "news" feeds in a long time. I wonder if they're even still carried by anyone?

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Zeinfeld]

If it creates both (a) discerning people and (b) the need for people to be discerning, it seems disingenuous to praise it for making people more discerning.

If you watch any network TV program these days you will see paid product placements inside the shows. The actors dunking their Oreo cookies in their morning coffee are paid to say that they are their favorite.

People who complain about the blogosphere are almost always doing so because they have a vested interest in keeping people stupid. They don't want people to be questioning the beltway 'reporters' like Tim Russert who last week admitted that he automatically considers high government officials to be on background and clearly treats their statements as unassailable gospel truth rather than as self interested claims which are at best likely to be half truths and are quite likely outright lies.

Because of overpaid fools like Russert there was no resistance when the Bush Administration blundered into Iraq with a plan that many experts including the army chief of staff considered to be half baked.

The point of the blogosphere is not to exclude views, it is to include them. You can find every view on the blogosphere including the paid product placements and specious punditry you find in the mainstream media. But you also find the views the mainstream media don't publish.

The blogosphere is largely a US phenomenon because the US media is by far the worst in the Western world.

Everyday the mainstream media interviews far right idiots like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, hatemongers like Bill Donahue, Pat Robertson etc. etc. etc. I have never once seen Chomsky interviewed in the past five years. And the only question the media asks itself is 'are we being too liberal'. There is a huge market for left and centrist pundits such as Paul Krugman but they don't get booked.

And the idea of having politicians on the talk shows rather than unaccountable pundits simply does not seem to have occurred. Every weekend five or six politicians drawn from the same pool of 15 'A-list' talking heads appear.

Its not simply a right wing bias though, its an establishment bias. In the early Gingrich years I had several exchanges with his staff. At the time they were the disruptors and the establishment was shutting them out. In another ten years the centrist Democrats will be the establishment and everyone else will be shut out, or rather that is what would happen if there was a mainstream media in ten years time which there probably will not be.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[TheRaven64]

I've recently adopted a new strategy when it comes to shopping. Every time I've complained about irritating adverts that tell me nothing about the product, people have pointed to brand recognition as the answer. Studies have shown that people are more likely to buy a brand they recognise than one they don't.

Now, when I don't know anything much about a particular product (e.g. toothpaste), I will choose the brand I recognise the least. If it works, I'll keep using it. If not, I'll switch to a slightly more familiar one. The ones that blare irritating advertising at me will be last on the list.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of advertisement do you prefer: the marketoid speak

That kind. I can turn it off if it bothers me.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[bit01]

Besides that, if you have no way to know which sources to trust, you have no way to get rid of that ignorance. That is the problem with viral marketing.

No, the problem is noise. A message can be compromised by too much noise as well as too little message. That is the problem with viral marketing and marketing in general.

In the real world you do not have the time to all evaluate the messages you receive. You must always trust your sources to greater or lesser extent. Marketing deliberately tries to subvert trusted sources by flooding them out with content free trash. It's no accident that the most successful advertising campaigns tend to be the ones with the most money spent. If the value of messages was inherent that would not be true. An arms race to get mindshare in other words. Everybody loses except the marketing "industry". It's also fraudulent but unfortunately the legal system isn't even close to being able to deal with it.

---

Beware deceptive astroturfers

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Eternauta3k]

I personally am sick of the "old school" commercial spots and would trade them for anything any day.

Give them to me! I'll gladly give you all those stupid commercials where they sing or use celebrities. Hell, my favorite commercial is an olive oil (Marolio) commercial. It's a picture of the bottle with a voice saying "Marolio..." and the company's motto. Lasts 10 seconds, burns the brand into your memory, and doesn't make you hate it.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, even if there was something more guyish, I don't think I'd ever go to something like a Tupper party. If you know your friend is only in there to peddle stuff, I'd simply say no.

If you want to be sure to get a good deal on anything, be sure to combine a product with service: if someone sells you PC, ask for service to be included. That'll make sure you either get a good brand product, or that you get a well-built product, because service wouldn't be worthwhile.

Ok, in part that might actually apply to Tupper stuff; it's said to be expensive but robust. Nonetheless, if a friend tried to sell things to me, I'd be just as careful as if I bought those things from a stranger. Because. There's money involved.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

You might not even notice that you're at the online equivalent of a "Tupper party". Some referral links are pretty sneaky. It isn't always obvious what is just a product or subsection id and what is an affiliate id. Even if you can tell, would you deny your friend a referral bonus? Sometimes the bonus is split among the referrer and the referred, making it even harder to say no to affiliate marketing.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Fred_A]

Sounds like a good plan to me. You've made a convert.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[makomk]

People who complain about the blogosphere are almost always doing so because they have a vested interest in keeping people stupid. They don't want people to be questioning the beltway 'reporters' like Tim Russert who last week admitted that he automatically considers high government officials to be on background and clearly treats their statements as unassailable gospel truth rather than as self interested claims which are at best likely to be half truths and are quite likely outright lies.

Whereas in the blogosphere, there are people who are actually secretly being paid to promote a particular view. Sure, the media may be overpaid fools, but at least you know who's signing their paychecks.

The point of the blogosphere is not to exclude views, it is to include them. You can find every view on the blogosphere including the paid product placements and specious punditry you find in the mainstream media. But you also find the views the mainstream media don't publish.

With absolutely no way of telling which is which and no consequences if people get caught. I remember when Slashdot and various blogs got taken in by a misleading press release claiming the Government was trying to make bloggers register (actually about large-scale paid astroturfing campaigns). Surprisingly few people noticed that its source was potentially less than reliable, despite the fact that the chairman of the organisation signing it (and the press release did have his real name on it) actually being in charge of a marketing company known for similar techniques in the past.

Its not simply a right wing bias though, its an establishment bias. In the early Gingrich years I had several exchanges with his staff. At the time they were the disruptors and the establishment was shutting them out. In another ten years the centrist Democrats will be the establishment and everyone else will be shut out, or rather that is what would happen if there was a mainstream media in ten years time which there probably will not be.

Whereas the blogosphere has an anti-establishment tendency - the mainstream media is all lies, and anything written by an apparently independent blogger or grassroots movement is assumed to be true (at least, until someone less lazy than 99% of the bloggers out there tracks down information on the author and discovers they're on the payroll of some marketing/PR outfit or the other). (I'm exaggerating, but only slightly - fake bloggers need to be able to write well and build up a strong following before they can start misleading people effectively.)

The real problem is, most people don't have time to find out what's actually going on (or can't be bothered) - in some cases, it's not even possible, for example when it's happening in a warzone far away. So they trust what other people are saying - and whether that's blogs or the media, the issues are still there. (The other problems are that blogs have even less of an incentive to be unbiased than mainstream news - in fact, most of the big-hitters seem to be built around the idea of telling people what they want to hear. Also, proper investigative reporting is expensive and difficult, and I can't seem bloggers doing it any time soon - though the media doesn't do much these days either.)

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Fred_A]

How is this a bad thing?

Because the level of trust on the network has gone down by yet another notch.

I'm not glad the virus/worm writers are working as hard as they are because it forces us to be more focused on security. I think they're scum because the typical mail/spam ratio nowadays is roughly 5% thanks to the zombies they create.

Instead of wasting my mail server's cycles like the spammers are, marketers are wasting my own. Since I can't upgrade myself easily, it's even worse IMO.

The saturation of everything with endless useless advertising is becoming a never ending aggression.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Zeinfeld]

Whereas in the blogosphere, there are people who are actually secretly being paid to promote a particular view. Sure, the media may be overpaid fools, but at least you know who's signing their paychecks.

Empirically this is not the case, there have been several Bush administration scandals where journalists turned out to be paid with government (i.e. our) money to propagandize for the GOP.

Product placements are not reported. And the curious silence of the establishment media on the Cunningham scandal in its early days strongly suggests that it was not only politicians that were visiting the Watergat building for the Poker and Hookers parties that court documents allege Brent Wilkes paid for. The number one and number two at the CIA were dismissed as a direct result of that scandal, Foggo for allegedly attending the parties, Porter-Goss for promoting him into that position.

Whereas the blogosphere has an anti-establishment tendency - the mainstream media is all lies, and anything written by an apparently independent blogger or grassroots movement is assumed to be true

Not in the blogs I read. It is routinely assumed that many bloggers are in the direct pay of politicians and campaigns. The same is true on Wikipedia. I have found a few editors there who were very obviously paid shills for a campaign. The Katherine Harris ones being the most amusing, they would be editing in endorsements by politicians who had already made public their refusal to support her. Then they would suddenly disappear and there would be news of a purge by 'Pink Sugar'.

But there are also paid shills and paid shills, I can pretty much guess who wrote many of the wikipedia articles on several Internet security protocols. In some cases people have told me that they wrote them. But its pretty rare that I read one of them and find something blatantly POV. Most people are sensible enough to know that a good article is going to survive much longer than an obvious puff piece.

Its about accountability. If you shill in the blogosphere other people soon find out. You can be a paid shill for Faux news and nobody will say anything against you.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Elemenope]

As Postman pointed out, laws were created to deal with advertisinbg at a time when all advertisments were expected to make factual truth-claims about their product; false advertising was when an advertiser make a false or erroneous factual claim in their advert about their product. When advertising became about image rather than facts, adverts for the most part ceased to make truth-claims at all. Thus, all those laws no longer apply.

Since many economists have pointed out recently that no economy can function efficiently when the participants have poor knowledge of the transaction and poor knowledge of the product, perhaps capitalism owes it to itself to enourage truth-claims in advertising again, and perhaps sanction or eschew ads that do not. What sort of regulatory mechabnism that might entail I dare not think about, but it might be a start.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[speculatrix]

indeed. take a look at the countries where corruption is rife such as the Congo, and you'll see some of the poorest countries, despite large quantities of aid being injected very little of it filters down to the people who need it, and very little money is invested in the future because corruption at the highest level means it is impossible to get a return on investment. There's no benefit to working hard if the local gov't officials discover a new tax to take everything you've got. Inflation is also usually a massive problem because people can't even trust their money - I have witnessed people trying to buy a washing machine in Zimbabwe dollars, and needing several large backpacks to carry the cash, and taking hours to count it!

trust in society is a vital glue, whether stopping to help a stranger in trouble, or running a shop and expecting that the dollars being offered for the goods on sale are both genuine and have a stable value for future trade.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

If it creates both (a) discerning people and (b) the need for people to be discerning, it seems disingenuous to praise it for making people more discerning..

I totally disagree.

The success of viral marketing schemes is a constant reminder that we are not yet discerning enough to properly protect ourselves from marketing BS.

This is, indeed, a good thing to know; and we should be thanking the viral marketers for teaching us this unfortunate fact about ourselves.

Because of our weak analytical skills, we will always an easy mark. It is inevitable that we will be prayed upon, so it is useless to criticize those who pray on us. The fault is entirely in ourselves.

A good analogy would be computer security. Our computers are not nearly secure enough, but, fortunately, we have an army of crackers constantly reminding us of that fact. Learning that our computers have weak security is, indeed, a good thing. We owe a debt of gratitude to those crackers who are constantly telling us that we have built a wholly inadequate computer security infrastructure.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[tilde_e]

The problem with this is that there are a lot of rebranded things, or sub-brands if you will. Odwalla is Coca-cola now, etc. So you need to also check who distributes that toothpaste because it might say J&J or Colgate in the fine print! Companies can produce new brands on a whim these days... but luckily they tend to be shelved not too far away from all the things you did recognize from that vendor. I've also seen knock-offs that are actually produced by the company they appear to be competing against.

For a sub-brand example, Santitas looks nothing like Frito-Lay at first glance on a store shelf: http://www.fritolay.com/fl/flstore/cgi-bin/product s_santitas.htm

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence the reason I take a different approach. Want nothing, define my needs, and culture jam.

The subconscious mind is continuously looking to satiate the conscious minds needs. Advertising operates on the premise that if you get to a child before they are of age you can destroy that fine line between need and want, and sell more. It becomes easier to convince an adult they need a guitar if you convince them as a child they need McDonalds, in other words.

First, you need to know what you need. That prioritizes above all else. Once you know what you need, then you move onto what you want. Wants fall into two categories; things you've always wanted, and things you didn't know you wanted. For example, I'v always wanted to upgrade my box for the last 2 years. I could've, but I decided I needed a car more so I invested money in a car instead. When I get cash left over, I usually save it until I feel financially safe enough I can go out and satiate my wants. Once those long-term wants are satiated, then I can go out and begin satiating things I'v had a curiosuity about or didn't know I wanted.

Culturjamming basically is walling yourself off. If all I want, right now, is a pair of inserts and some foot powder for my boots, then that's all I want. I'll walk into wally world and buy just that, while listening to radio and wearing yellow tinted glasses. Nothing gets to me then and I'm free to have control over my mindshare while in the store.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Qzukk]

Depends on your goals behind such purchase decisions. If you want to put the company out of business, then you'll have to check real hard, especially with the number of companies all shared by the giant conglomerates (like Colgate-Palmolive, or Ralston Purina, or Kraft... the list goes on and on). If you just want them to change their ways, then if enough people are preferring the less-advertised sub-brand over the heavily advertised main brand, then rational companies would decide that the sub-brands are doing something right and try to do that more often. Which would hopefully mean less advertising, and not heavy advertisement of their popular new brand (formerly the sub-brand).

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Eli Gottlieb]

I would argue that if you want people to trust random strangers, you should create a situation or society that justifies trusting random strangers. Trying to get people to trust people when people aren't actually trustworthy is lying to people and untrustworthy in itself.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Eivind]

What kind of advertisement do you prefer: the marketoid speak, bland, noisy, blinking commercial spots rotated a hundred times on every channel every day, or more game-like advertising,

You're creating a false dictohomy. My answer is *neither*.

I like to get the facts. It's fine with me to get them presented in a fun way -- but I want the facts. I react strongly negatively when I detect that people are trying to bullshit me. There's so much bullshit though, that these days you're pretty much forced to assume that any claim you yourself can't evaulate the probability of is bullshit.

Marketing camoflaging as non-marketing is noising up our communication-channels. I see no reason to allow it. Marketing can look any way it want aslong as it's truthful, and it clearly indicates that it is indeed marketing.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Rob Simpson]

I've also seen knock-offs that are actually produced by the company they appear to be competing against.

True, but these generics aren't advertised... if they sell more of their less- or unadvertised brand than the one that marketers are constantly bombarding people with, it might send a message.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[LordMaxxon]

The ones that blare irritating advertising at me will be last on the list.

Unfortunately, most people ARE influenced by blaring advertising. While getting the lesser-advertised brands may be correct, the few of us that do this have no impact on these companies' profits. We can't do squat to stop it. Ironic that the captcha is "despair."

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Farmer Tim]

And how do you know I'm not getting paid to say bad things about Dell every chance I get ?-)

No company would waste their money hiring a professional to do it when there are so many willing amateurs.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

Say blogosphere again. SAY BLOGOSPHERE AGAIN. I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker. Say blogosphere one more goddamn time.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[SurturZ]

Anything that encourages mistrust of online sources is a great idea in my book. Then again, I sell tinfoil hats.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you want to purchase something on the web. Let's say that something has a disproportionate number of dishonest marketers, scammers, or outright fraudulent sales, or perhaps is slightly outside the laws of your country. Let's call it "porn" or "prescription drugs", "region-free DVD's/players" or even "computer hardware" (all legitimate things to buy)!

How, exactly, CAN a person be discerning? How can you tell a good porn vendor from a bad one? How do you know beforehand they're not going to abscond with your CC number? How do you know those prescription drugs are not Chinese placebos? How can I tell that this region-free patch for my DVD doesn't contain a virus by looking at its web page?

I think the answer is that you can't tell. As another commenter below posted, it's extremely important that people in society trust random strangers. It allows for free commerce. Without it we just have a lot of corruption and scams.

The real problem is that in all these areas, there is absolutely no effective police enforcement. I receive hundreds of criminal solicitations in my inbox per day (far more than any other crime I'm personally exposed to), and these guys continue to get away with it.

I think the solution to the problem is not to kill viral marketing. Marketing is marketing. People will always want to hock their wares. Who really cares? Let them vie for my eyeballs. It won't get them anywhere. The more viral marketing exists, the less it will work. The real thing that's making people cynical is the complete lack of trust in certain markets. All marketing efforts should be publicly disclosed, (any public communication, really), and evaluated by governments for accuracy and fraud. This just isn't happening yet. Fraud is winning.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[complete loony]

While I agree with your generalization, pushy selling to your friends and family in such a fashion is usually counter-productive and not a good long term career move.

My wife is a fairly successful avon representative. She got there by being honest and never misrepresenting herself. She even manages to sell avon to some of her friends, but she's never pushy. When meeting new people, she just makes her career known as most of us would. If anyone shows an interest she'll pull a book out of her bag and pass it around. As far as I know she hasn't lost any friends yet.

She also doesn't use the products, and doesn't try to claim anything about them. Mostly she will encourage people to try a product, and if they aren't happy they can give it back when she returns next time, no questions asked. Sure enough when she rocks up and asks specifically about the product they tried, most people will hang on to it.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[pionzypher]

You're starting to sound like Kierkgaard. ;)

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[mgblst]

This is an idiotic statement. Who do I ask about over the counter medicine? Who do I ask about light bulbs? Or car tyres? Or which oranges are the good ones to buy? Or which speakers to get? I guess I should just spend the rest of my life education myself about every possible thing that I am going to buy.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

Just because I like lists, and enjoy playing "ideal world", here's what I think all advertisments should have to adhere to:

1) All advertisements must:
a) Clearly and distinctly state the full name of the company selling the product
b) State if that company is a subsidiary, division, etc. of a larger company and that parent company's name
c) Clearly identify the product being advertised
d) Clearly state the function and or purpose of the product
e) Clearly state any adverse risks associated with the product
f) Clearly identify anyone other than the aforementioned companies involved in funding/sponsoring the advertisement
g) Clearly, distinctly, and understandably state the legally required disclaimers (no fast talking, no low volume overlays, etc.)
h) Present a view of the product as sold or provided (no lacquered hamburgers, no plastic french fries)
i) Clearly indicate that the marketing is an advertisement

2) All advertisements must not:
a) Use any form of direct or indirect sexual association to influence the viewer
b) Make any statement that expresses or implies any false information
c) Present themselves as being and/or representing any entity other than the company selling the product and the company(s) funding the advertisement
d) Target marketing to anyone under 18 years of age (Toy manufactures and companies producing children's products may make the advertising appealing to minors, provided that the full information is also included for the adult making the purchasing decision)
e) Present advertising in any form that purports to be a show or entertainment
e) Attempt to make advertising invasive, obtrusive, obnoxious, annoying, or any form of public nuisance

I'm sure there are more rules available, but these are my biggest pet peeves with the "marketing" being shoved at us from every direction.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Awel]

Do you mean USENET? Because that still exists, and is still used by quite a lot of people. I sometimes look at a couple of newsgroups on the more obscure end of the spectrum, and there doesn't appear to be a major spam problem there.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Magada]

Yes, and fish can choose to live on dry land.
You live in the culture which gave rise to Sturgeon's law and there's no escaping that. Why do you go to wally world for $random_stuff?

Why not $other_megastore, or two different cornershops? Why do you shop (with money, at a shop) at all, instead of, say, bartering for stuff you need or trading in Liberty Dollars or living in an enclosed polis with a gift-based economy with your 200 best friends that acts like a privately-owned corporation when relating to the outside world?

Glasses and a radio? Pah. Oh, what radio stations do you like, btw? Which music touches you the most? Whose commercials are the least obnoxious?

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[fanpoe]

2) All advertisements must not:
a) Use any form of direct or indirect sexual association to influence the viewer

I thought you said "ideal world"? This one's in the wrong list!

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

Ok, maybe not in your ideal world, true. But in my ideal world I wand my ads to be ads and my sex to be free^W add free. Don't use sex to try and sell me beer, and I'll do the using of beer to get sex on my own, TYVM.

But more to the point, the use of hot girls/guys to insinuate that drinking this brand/driving this car/using this enlargement cream will automatically attract said girls/guys to me is the most annoying part or marketing to me. The whole psychology of desire annoys me to no end.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[fanpoe]

Fair enough. I just tend to find it makes advertising far more obviously advertising so you can then enjoy it on its own terms rather than wondering whether it is trying to mislead you (it is, so otherwise ignore it).

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[srussia]

Since we're playing "ideal world". Lets make that a little more elegant.

1. Anyone can say and do whatever they want.
2. Everyone shall be accountable for any harm they cause whether through words or actions (Restitution in case of fraud on the part of the fraudulent seller; disappointment on the part of a stupid buyer).

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[kabocox]

Now, when I don't know anything much about a particular product (e.g. toothpaste), I will choose the brand I recognise the least. If it works, I'll keep using it. If not, I'll switch to a slightly more familiar one. The ones that blare irritating advertising at me will be last on the list.

This is why I try to go for Sam's Choice or Great Value on as many products as possible. I've never seen an ad for either of those brands once other than the label on the store shelves.

Re:This forces us to be more discerning

[Kelbear]

Interesting,

With regards to my job, I can cut my lead time by about a 1/3rd if there is trust. I don't need the 4 pages of legal ass-covering, and I can accept his initial pricing instead of entering the negotiation period for each time I purchase equipment for our factories.

He can profit a bit by screwing me on a purchase once, but he can profit more by giving me good service at good prices with repeat business.

So the "trust" isn't really trust, but it's better than that, it's mutually beneficial. Knowing that we both win by working together is much more comforting than baseless goodwill.

Game theory does dictate the level of "trust" I have. If the game session is short, I have zero trust, because I know that game theory says that in this scenario, his best move is to screw me on the one purchase. I don't know how many times I'll have to buy more of certain items so I'll cover myself until I'm confident I'll have a long-term relationship. If he's aware that I'll be completing a game session soon, he should try to screw me, so I cover at the end. If I know it'll be long-term, I'll use the tit-for-tat arrangement.

Just a micro-level anecdote.

Who's the bitch now?

[tomstdenis]

Don't think of yourself as a victim of viral marketing. Think of yourself as their bitch. :-)

Sometimes that "really interesting video on youtube" ... isn't really that interesting at all. Go read a book or something...

Re:Who's the bitch now?

[Legion303]

"Sometimes that "really interesting video on youtube" ... isn't really that interesting at all."

But...but Digg told me it was a cool new commercial! They wouldn't deceive me!

Re:Who's the bitch now?

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

Sorry, but it's in books too.

This is what I hate about modern advertising, you often don't even know it's advertising. So you can no longer trust anything you read.
Take for example company shills on forums who are paid to give positive opinions. How can you tell?

At least with tv or video you could mute it, turn it off or fast forward past it. Nowadays you don't even know it's advertising.

Marketing

[MemoryDragon]

Has ruined every medium so far it has touched... This is the rule not the exception!

Re:Marketing

[Monoman]

That is pretty much what I was going to say.

The way to ruin a good thing is for someone to try and make a buck from it. Just about every time the marketing industry gets wind of a free way to advertise they destroy they system they exploit.

Re:Marketing

[suv4x4]

Has ruined every medium so far it has touched... This is the rule not the exception!

It has that potential, but come on: I watched the video 10 mins ago after I read this article (i.e. I already knew it's fake). I still enjoyed it a lot and laughed at some moments.

Not everything should be "real" for it to be enjoyable. And not everything should be void of marketing and product placement to be enjoyable too.

The devil's in the details as always, and how well all goals the creators had play together to form a coherent and fun final product.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I already knew it's fake. I still enjoyed it a lot

So then, what is the problem with being upfront about it? Why do they have to pretend they're not marketers?

Re:Marketing

[suv4x4]

So then, what is the problem with being upfront about it? Why do they have to pretend they're not marketers?

Simple: hype. It's just easier to hype it up this way.

This is a temporary effect though. We know if this formula gets users often enough, people will stop reacting to it, as with anything else.

Re:Marketing

[bit01]

Simple: hype. It's just easier to hype it up this way.

Of course marketers never ask themselves why it's easier to hype it up that way.

They are fraudulently misrepresenting themselves as a more trusted information source. There's a reason why reputable publications have a "Advertisement" on anything that might otherwise reasonably be construed as third party information.

I live in hope that the law will eventually catch up and put some of these people in jail for false advertising. We'll see.

---

New game: Spot the lying astroturfer on /.!

Re:Marketing

[drsquare]

Well it means there is such a thing as free, over-the-air TV. Newspapers and magazines are much cheaper, and commercial sponsorship helps many small businesses. How is that ruining mediums?

OT: RSS feed

[smoker2]

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/89 258382/article.pl
This RSS feed directs to the home page, as does
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/89 294729/article.pl
All previous RSS links are fine.
This is on FC4, Firefox 2.0.0.1
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061208 Firefox/2.0.0.1
I am accessing the RSS feed through the Firefox Live Bookmark
I am not prepared to create an account at Sourceforge just to tell you of this error.

Re:OT: RSS feed

[X0563511]

On that note that slow-ass javascript floating threshold bar is annoying! Especially how i have to close it TWICE!

Get rid of it or let us turn that damn thing off! (however the realtime collapsing and expanding threads is awesome.

We some of this in Denmark too

[Reverse Gear]

A campaign that is said to actually have made young men think more about keeping the speed down.
Speedbandits

Re:We some of this in Denmark too

[Sneakernets]

Oh my god, that's BRILLIANT!

Re:We some of this in Denmark too

[Molochi]

NSFW.

Re:We some of this in Denmark too

[AndroidCat]

I wonder how many young men have run into something else while suffering from "target fixation"?

peer pressure

[gravesb]

If you are so easily influenced by this type of video, maybe there are some other issues besides trust that you need to look at.

Re:peer pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is in order to look at a more drastic real world example: I don't give to charities. I've learned from numerous scandals where charities used most of the money for their internal operations and only a small percentage ended up helping the alleged cause of the charity. I've learned from police reports about fraudulent collectors who pretend to be collecting for a charity but are really just collecting for themselves. I'm sure there are worthwhile causes and I know there are people out there who want to do good and can't get the money, but I have no way of telling one from the other, so I don't give to charities. Fakers ruin it for everybody, offline and online.

Flogging Flaunters

[romland]

Well, call me a troll, but...

Personally I have my doubts as to how many viewers/readers of these blogs actually stop to think whether they are genuine or not, moreover, I wonder how many actually cares. Personally I don't read any personal blogs of people I don't know unless they are of a more technical or "factual" nature (a simple example would be "AmigaOS 15 released, click here to get it!"). Now, these kind of topics are sure prone to be marketing stunts but chances are I don't even know about them then. Much less read them.

An exception is of course when I KNOW that it's a marketing stunt, then I might start reading it just for giggles.

And as always a lot of people will say something along the lines of "If there's money involved, look at it with a critical eye" now. Well, that kind of bollocks sure is true, but I think most of us actually DO look at it critically, without even knowing it.

To get to the point, I really have to ask the people who get upset at these kind of blogs to reevaluate their lives.

Trust is not the problem...

[haakondahl]

The problem is that a generation of Americans (speaking for my own country) has been pumped so full of non-judgmentalism, relativism, and revisionism by public schools that a majority of us can no longer discern it from shine-ola.

If every point of view is equally valid, and all persons equally deserving of respect, then why should we bother learning how to think (as an older education would have it), or even what to think (as a modern education would have it)? Why should we bother learning the difference between lies and mistakes, between manifest and latent properties, or between good guys and bad guys? That's right--a long time ago, students troubled themselves to elucidate the natures of Truth, Beauty, and Justice. Now we get classes on S&M.

This viral marketing "crisis" may be interesting, but it is the least engaging symptom of a very real problem.

Re:Trust is not the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is not relativism or non-judgementalism. The issue is that rhetoric has replaced reason in our (American) society, and this is true regardless of one's political persuasion.

The consequence is that complex, abstract notions such as 'Truth, Beauty, and Justice' are reduced to sound-bites, serving some corporate and/or political purpose. Thoughtful exploration of events and issues is discouraged in favor of simplistic 'truths'. The common phrases that "The war in Iraq is with 'evildoers who hate us for our freedoms'", and "the planet is warming due entirely to those evil oil-burners" come to mind as examples of this.

Now, raise a couple of generations in an environment like this, and you'll wind up with what you describe - a generation of folks who aren't critical thinkers, but *are* avid consumers, mindlessly absorbing whatver media they run into. Kinda what you want, if you're a good (unregulated) capitalist.

Viral marketing is just another form of rhetoric, and as usual, those with a louder megaphone (ie. corps and their ad budgets) gets to both frame the debate and contribute most of the conversation.

Re:Trust is not the problem...

[Eli Gottlieb]

You're full of shit. There's a damned large difference between merely describing events as they happened (what modern history classes do) and explicitly teaching kids not to judge anything.

Furthermore, English class practically exists to teach kids that all points of view are not equally valid -- that teachers are right by nature and students wrong by nature. Somehow I don't think that kind of "judgement" teaches kids much of anything, either.

What they should really teach is Logic.

Now we get classes on S&M. What schools did you attend? I'd like to enroll.

Re:Trust is not the problem...

[koreth]

a majority of us can no longer discern it from shine-ola.

Since you imply this is a change in the situation... What evidence do you have that this was ever not the case? Please be specific. Or was David Hannum just anticipating today's pinko commie public school system when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute" in 1869? I seem to recall reading about a fair bit of snake oil being sold back in the day.

It would, I admit, be great if the past had been as glorious as you say. Sadly, I suspect it's more likely the case that people are still people, same as ever: most of them are gullible, about half of them are dumber than average, and almost all of them would rather eat bread and attend circuses than contemplate the nature of truth.

Re:Trust is not the problem...

[Valdrax]

The problem is that a generation of Americans (speaking for my own country) has been pumped so full of non-judgmentalism, relativism, and revisionism by public schools that a majority of us can no longer discern it from shine-ola.

I'm sorry, but a person who has an ability to see the world from multiple points of view is generally better at discerning intent and deception than someone who thinks that there is only One Truth and that it is theirs. All you have to do is play the the latter's biases, whereas the former is capable of seeing the situation objectively or at least recognize that they're being pandered to.

A closed mind is not the answer to telling truth from lies.

If you need someone to do that for you...

[MarkusQ]

...having a pernicious effect on our tendency to trust what seems genuine."

If you haven't had this tendency whacked out of you be daily life you need to get out more, or do something other than stare at a blank wall while you're in.

Seriously. A month of almost any sort of social activity (or twenty minutes in a few bars I know of) should fix it. As should a few year's experience debugging other people's code, working in retail, or even watching nature shows on TV ("Wasps do what?!? That's seriously messed up dude!").

Heck, just open an e-mail account.

If you have a tendency to trust things just because they seem genuine you are in deep, deep trouble. And that fact hasn't changed for millions of years.

--MarkusQ

No, greed does.

[JamesTRexx]

From TFA:
In the long term, developing this kind of skepticism will benefit all Internet users, Mr. Federman says. But in the short term, he says, online deceptions of the "wig-out" video variety have the potential to erode trust in events or moments that seem to be free of artifice or marketing interests.
"If one is always skeptical, then goes to cynicism, you end up feeling pretty negative about the world," Mr. Federman says. "You end up with a very sour disposition. You tend to look at people and interactions as everyone trying to manipulate you, and tend to have a miserable existence, quite frankly.
"It's not pleasant. You can't enjoy yourself. ?You always have to be on your guard."

The core to it is just greed.
Wherever there's a new online trend, be it blogging, home made videos, virtual reality worlds, people want to make money out of it. Just look around in the real world, advertisements everywhere. I can't take a five minute walk in town without coming across numerous ads.
Even worse, I can't take a five minute drive without coming across large ads which to me is inviting danger. I try to ignore them as much as possible, but they do distract from the road where my attention should be. There is legislation about handsfree calling in the car, why's there no legislation against lingerie ads alongside main roads?
Ads are like roaches and crawl under everything that shows a crack. Radio, tv, and now games as well. I stopped listening to radio and watching tv because I got sick of the bad content stuffed with ads. And no, this was not free content as we all pay a contribution to public radio and tv.
In a few years one can't hide from reality by spending a few hours on games because they'll be loaded with ads.
And now reality gets abused by greedy people producing "real" content.

I really wish people could just let things be what they are and not manipulate it for money. There are more important things in life than making a shitload of money.

Re:No, greed does.

[fuzzix]

There are more important things in life than making a shitload of money.

You seem not to be playing "Who dies with the most toys". You must have some form of schizoid personality disorder or one of those fashionable attention deficit thingies and must be prescribed some behaviour altering pills not entirely unrelated to cocaine. I suggest winemol or ruthlessitin.

I think you'll find yourself a productive and happy member of our little Monopoly playing family here if you follow my programme and just play along.

Re:No, greed does.

[Arivia]

Tip: The target audience for lingerie is not the same audience as the one who will be distracted by it.

Re:No, greed does.

[JamesTRexx]

just play along

That's the problem, I always sucked at any game. :-(

:-P

Re:No, greed does.

[JamesTRexx]

Don't care who the target audience is, it's about the effect of ads like this, no matter what product is being sold.
Right now they also use pictures from the old Star Trek series for something, but it's impossible to read the text on it without getting a good long look at it. That's something that should not be used at places where only cars come by. Do that at places where you only have pedestrians.

Re:No, greed does.

[Anonymous Coward]

The core to it is just greed.

I seriously don't mean this facetiously, but dude ... that's the fundamental principle of capitalism.

There are more important things in life than making a shitload of money.

Don't you listen to the news, or read the Libertarian blogs? Everything that costs money and doesn't return a profit is a waste of money. Why can't you see this? Spending money and/or time on things that do not have a sufficient ROI is never worthwhile. Get with the capitalist program dude!

Re:No, greed does.

[MemoryDragon]

I personally think, capitalism in the sense of the strongest will survive, is destined to destroy itself, just as communism was. It just will take longer, but the signes of its destruction are all over the place. This will not be the end of capitalism but the end of capitalism without borders.

Re:No, greed does.

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem with greed - everyone's greedy and selfish, and we all know to expect that much. The deception I have problem with, and the modern "marketing" discipline is so often an euphemism for deception. One, it takes up too much brain bandwidth to process - this is a huge waste for those of us in sci/eng which impose more than its share on brain bandwidth on its own, and two, the consequential increase in cynicism (i.e., worthy subjects/projects get derided/suspected by default due to the instincts built-up).

I have no problem with ruthless traders in markets (Wall St. or commodity exchange, flea markets, whatever). The damage due to the marketing discipline, both commercial and political, at the society levels are so much more insidious and destructive.

For what it's worth, I studied at Wharton, and had worked for marketing companies.

Re:No, greed does.

[JamesTRexx]

Get with the capitalist program dude!

I'd like to, but I just don't have the funds for that. :-P

Re:No, greed does.

[Eli Gottlieb]

As a genuinely ADHD person whose entire family takes stimulants to enable us to produce stupid-but-necessary work at the quantity and quality the rest of the world seems able to produce without medical help, I resent that, you insensitive clod!

I agree with you that ADHD is largely a manufactured illness. Or rather, what was once merely eccentric behavior has been redefined as illness by narrowing social norms and rising standards of what productive work is. So forgive us for trying to stay in the only game in town.

Re:No, greed does.

[Anonymous Coward]

All of you commie-treehugging-carebear-meek-shall-inherit-the -earth-gandhi-lovi'n parasites
make me sick. Where is the spirit of our forefathers to rape and pillage the land, hunt all other species to extinction, enslave our fellow man, break their will and make them do our work for us? Have we all turned into women? Are their no real men left? I say, fashion yourself a sword and behead the first bean-counter, nerd or pr-talkinghead you meet and take all their stuff. A little bit of revolution with some guillotines and some heads off of people who have way too much stuff under the current rules is all I ask.
It is time to switch games fro m monopoly to RISK ;)

Re:No, greed does.

[Sj0]

It already has. People with a lot of money are trying to scale back the changes that took place in social democracies around the end of the industrial revolution, which were designed to reduce the power of the rich over the poor.

Re:No, greed does.

[JamesTRexx]

Hey! Call me a carebear again and I'll hit you with my purse!

:-P

Problem is many marketeers are scum....

[gweihir]

They have no personal honor or responsibility at all. They will use whatever it takes and accept whatever collateral damage happens, just to get their message across. Basically this boils down to personal gain (their success) above any other values.

Re:Problem is many marketeers are scum....

[maxume]

The collateral damage is largely limited to people lowering their 'provisional' trust.

An example: Given low initial trust, if a filmmaker gains a reputation for maintaining non/low/reasonable commercialism in his films, people will 'trust' him not to in future projects. New filmmakers will only have that early provisional trust and will have to rely on people who are so interested in finding new work that they 'risk' seeing ad ridden crap, and other people will rely on those people as guides. Those trust relationships aren't that expensive to maintain for the consumers, but the 'trust' may be worth quite a lot to a filmmaker, so he would eventually become quite hesitant to destroy his reputation. People can rely on the trust they have built up, mitigating the actual damage caused by cynical marketing.

Not so simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Folk naturally promote what they're doing, the problem is that Marketing vermin are now targeting "word of mouth". Consider an honest guy blogging about his startup who choses to upload a video or podcast. If it's good, people tell their friends and it will receive limited publicity.

Now consider that same startup eighteen months later. The company is successful and has recently secured VC and opened a marketing department. The new marketing department decide to continue the founders successful strategy and provide both copy for his new corporate blog and a professionally produced video. Marketing has always been denigrating to their demographic, and now "viral marketing" is reducing everything to the scrutiny of a cynical sales pitch.

Bill Hicks said it best.

If you work in marketing or advertising, kill yourselves now.
(Nervous audience laughter)
No, that isn't a joke.

Re:Not so simple

[romland]

Fair point.

But what you are describing has always been the case. Somehow we're doing just fine, and we're drowning in "corporate messages". There are non-obvious sponsorships in practically everything we see, read, hear. Is our world more cynical than it was before, say, the TV? No idea. But certainly not to the point where it is bothering me.

I'm almost inclined to say that the reason we think the world is more cynical is because the world is shrinking and more people gets to voice their opinion more easily. And we all know that a bland statement is going to go unnoticed if posted next to your faultfinding captious critic. So it's a selection we make to ourselves. The only difference now is that we select what is going to be seen (by digging, referring to other blogs etc), not the editor selecting the messages sent in to "letters to the editor".

Then again, I merely skimmed TFA.

Drop the "viral"

[Guppy06]

and the title is still true.

When will the nation learn that we cannot abide with marketing in this post-9/11 world?

Re:Drop the "viral"

[BrokenHalo]

When will the nation learn that we cannot abide with marketing in this post-9/11 world?

What does 9/11 have to do with the price of fish? For that matter, what was so special about 9/11?

I know the politicians of our day like to beat up the terrorism issue as if it was something new, despite the fact that it has literally thousands of years of history, but those same politicians are the first to use the most scurrilous tactics the marketroids can devise.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Guppy06]

woosh

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Anonymous Coward]

"post-9/11 world"?

Ugh... Carry on good little consumer.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Lord_Dweomer]

How you got modded up to +5 insightful is beyond me. Ask any successful businessman whether or not we can abide with marketing and the answer will be no. The reason why is that our capitalist society DEPENDS on it. The only way for a business to grow is to increase sales and the only way to do that is to get the word out. Guess how you get the word out? Oh right, marketing.

I always find it interesting to read the comments on /. for stories about advertising and marketing. People love to bash it but do not realize how absolutely necessary it is for our economy. For starters, try doing some research to determine the percentage of our country that is employed in some capacity in marketing/advertising. That's a LOT of jobs we're talking about there. The other thing I'd like to point out is that everybody loves to bash negative things and those are the one that tend to form our impressions about other related things. What about all the GOOD viral marketing that you've seen and gone "oh, cool, thats entertaining". Case in point, I wonder how many slashdotters read about this Aqua Teen Hunger Force campaign and thought it was awesome, not necessarily the whole hoopla that it caused, but the actual LED moonenite thing. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Slashdot loves its hypocracy.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Eli Gottlieb]

I'll summarize a post about this I saw further up the page.

In the old days, when Truth-In-Advertising laws were made, all kinds of people assumed that advertising would make falsifiable claims of fact about the products in question. That's the "good" kind of marketing -- designed to both inform and persuade. You can fact-check it even when it lies.

Nowadays, marketing is more about image than anything. You can no longer debunk an advertisement, because after analysis most of the ad boils away as factually insubstantial. This is "bad" marketing -- designed to persuade without informing. In the worst cases, the advertising contains so little real information that the firm that comissioned the marketing doesn't gain any additional sales!

Cell-phone ads in the newspaper ("XYZ has the least dropped calls...") are Good Marketing. Viral advertising (Graffiti of kids with a new video-gaming handheld.) and the tripe aired during the Super Bowl (two men accidentally "kiss" while eating a candy bar) are Bad Marketing. There is a difference, and society could get rid of the bad and leave the good rather simply.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Guppy06]

You're the second one so far. Apparently my joke was too subtle for both responders and moderators.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Guppy06]

"People love to bash it but do not realize how absolutely necessary it is for our economy."

If the economy of the southern states can manage to do without slavery, I think we could figure out a way for the Republic to survive without marketing. If you're going to try to defend something like this, you need to do it on its own moral terms, rather than the "But it's making us money!" scapegoat.

"What about all the GOOD viral marketing that you've seen and gone "oh, cool, thats entertaining"."

Seeing the words "good" and "viral" together like that didn't tip you off that, perhaps, there is no such thing as a good viral marketing campaign?

"Case in point, I wonder how many slashdotters read about this Aqua Teen Hunger Force campaign and thought it was awesome, not necessarily the whole hoopla that it caused, but the actual LED moonenite thing. Yeah, that's what I thought."

It is possible to hold both the guerrilla advertising campaign and the overzealous reaction to it in contempt. It's where the Eighth Amendment came from.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Lord_Dweomer]

If the economy of the southern states can manage to do without slavery, I think we could figure out a way for the Republic to survive without marketing. If you're going to try to defend something like this, you need to do it on its own moral terms, rather than the "But it's making us money!" scapegoat.

Why? My point had nothing to do with morals. Our current economy cannot function without marketing/advertising. If you want to bring morals into it, how would you weigh the loss of the millions of jobs that would disappear if we took that industry out of the equation?

Seeing the words "good" and "viral" together like that didn't tip you off that, perhaps, there is no such thing as a good viral marketing campaign?

Are you going to cite an example or just ask a vague question in an attempt to dismiss my point? I'll throw out an easy example...lets say a story about a viral campaign gets Dugg on Digg. Its happened plenty of times before. They show interest in the bad campaigns yet they also show interest in the good campaigns. Proof that there is good viral marketing.

It is possible to hold both the guerrilla advertising campaign and the overzealous reaction to it in contempt. It's where the Eighth Amendment came from.

The law is perfectly able to sort out the situation, however in terms of the marketing value of the campaign, I'd say it was extremely successful as target audience response to it was very positive....which is what my point was....which you completely missed. Thanks for playing.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Guppy06]

"If you want to bring morals into it, how would you weigh the loss of the millions of jobs that would disappear if we took that industry out of the equation?"

Compared to perpetuating something that has the demonstrable effect of eroding one of the basic pillars of human society? Not much. My friendly neighborhood crack dealer has done less harm (he only sells crack, not my personal information). Despite what others have said in this topic, cynicism is neither good nor desirable. Skepticism, yes, but not cynicism.

"Proof that there is good viral marketing."

Only insofar as you conveniently define "good" as "commercially effective." I'm sure the Manson Family did wonders for "getting the word out" about the White Album, which would be "good" according to you.

"I'd say it was extremely successful as target audience response to it was very positive"

Which outweighs the fact that various laws concerning littering and dumping were violated in this effort? So long as the income is larger than the fines, it's "good?" What if the Beatles had paid Charles Manson to do his thing?

Re:Drop the "viral"

[MadUndergrad]

You know the funny thing? I don't even know what that stupid ad was for. It could have been for the candy, a truck, some kind of beer....I don't even remember. Talk about wasted money.

Re:Drop the "viral"

[Kelbear]

Marketing allows for recognition of a product in addition to its competitors. Knowing that there are multiple alternatives gives you a starting point for comparison and letting you figure out your best choice.

Capital-intensive markets may require a large consumer base in order to exist and suppply that consumer base with a product. If there wasn't marketing to let consumers know it exists, then the consumer base available to sell to may be too small for the company to offer the product, then not even those who would be willing to buy the product can get the product.

Marketing helps society when the market exhibits large economies of scale that would otherwise be foregone with less business.

Marketing is also used by charitable non-profit organizations.

Marketing is a tool that can be used for "good" or for "evil". Much like how a hammer can help build a house for the homeless, or smash your head in. And there's still plenty of grey area in between to deal with as well.

it depends really....

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

maybe where it comes to blatant astroturfing, no. But Hiro Nakamura's blog really drew me into the Heroes thing. NOw with Primatech paper and Hana Gitelman's blog... it's kind of impressive what you can do when you present a product meaningfully to consumers

Having a pernicious effect?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

these fake blogs or 'flogs' are having a pernicious effect on our tendency to trust what seems genuine.

Good.

and how!

[DragonTHC]

yet they still seem to trust bush.

Meh.

[pizzach]

Must....not become....more cynical....about to snap. Maybe drawing mustaches on the advertisements above the urinals with help.

Re:Meh.

[Joebert]

Japanese Proverb:
he wo hitte shiri tsubome
There is no use squeezing your butt once you've farted

You've obviously never shit your pants before.

Re:Meh.

[amyhughes]

Maybe apoxying something over top of the ad would help even more?

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like a free personality test?

Less trusting and more discerning? Tragic.

[Kohath]

You mean people will start to think about what is being said to them and try to understand whether it's true or not? They won't just blindly believe everything they're told without confirming it?

Wow! What a tragedy. On some minor level, folks are growing up a little and becoming smarter.

Politicians' jobs just got a tiny bit harder.

(If you believe this article at all. I don't really know why you should.)

Re:Less trusting and more discerning? Tragic.

[bit01]

Wow! What a tragedy. On some minor level, folks are growing up a little and becoming smarter.

No, folks that are just as smart as they were before will have to waste more of their lives dealing with shills and imposters. What a waste and a less civilized society.

One example is telemarketers; every hour of their so-called "work" means they are stealing an hour of other people's time, more if you include computer dialing and other tricks. Another example is TV advertising, where people end up paying twice over, once to watch/avoid the ad and secondly the increased price of the product to pay for the ad. The net value of broadcast television for the vast majority of the population is now approaching zero because of advertising.

The time of our life and what we spend it on is the most important thing we have.

Marketing frauds like to pretend that they add value and that it doesn't matter. They've lying.

---

The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".

Intel ads on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, Slashdot serves ads pointing to the Intel Opinion Centre which has (all?) stories removed because it seems the Opinion Centre thing with its "news" backfired... I'd say this story is spot on. :P

From the fine article, why this is bad.

[Erris]

"If one is always skeptical, then goes to cynicism, you end up feeling pretty negative about the world," Mr. Federman says. "You end up with a very sour disposition. You tend to look at people and interactions as everyone trying to manipulate you, and tend to have a miserable existence, quite frankly. It's not pleasant. You can't enjoy yourself. You always have to be on your guard."

It is a case of the bad tarring the good and it's intentional. If the people making these things tell you up front, "brought to you by Sony," no one would care. The problem is that people in marketing don't want us to trust each other. This goes double for companies like M$, whose primary competition is free software. They understand the value of honest endorsement by disinterested third parties and seek to both use and destroy it.

On the other foot

[Joebert]

The company behind the latest You Tube video sensation would like you to know this: It was never the intention to portray anything other than a dramatization.

In that case, I suppose they'll understand if I create videos that make it appear products like theirs ruined my life, dropping hints to make people think of their products & post them in the same mannor as their videos.

Afterall, it's only a dramatization.

Sad thing is, I'm willing to bet I'd have cease and desist or face legal consequences letters sent to me faster than I could imagine by doing so.

Will it Blend?

[Leebert]

I know what they're saying, I mean, I ran straight out and bought a $400 Total Blender from Blendtec myself.

*eyeroll*

I like viral marketing because it tends to be that I seek it out, on my own schedule, not the other way around. Plus it has to be good.

but there are honest people.

[Erris]

If you have a tendency to trust things just because they seem genuine you are in deep, deep trouble. ... A month of almost any sort of social activity (or twenty minutes in a few bars I know of) should fix it. ... debugging other people's code, working in retail, or even watching nature shows on TV... just open an e-mail account.

There is a difference between scepticism and cynicism. The cynic never expects to find someone who's honest and helpful, and that's sad. They have given up being that way themselves. The problem raised by flogs and their promotion is that exposure to manipulation tends to make cynics. Lying is wrong and fraud is violence.

Companies that do this kind of thing should know that distrust will stick to them, not others.

fake blogs or 'flogs'

[tomhudson]

... because on the Internet nobody knows you're a flog ...

Genuine Information

[Jekler]

I believe the Viral Marketing and Stealth Marketing trends will eventually lead us down the road to Informed Marketing. We'll reach a point where we no longer wish to be entertained or distracted by commercials, but rather, the commercials which give us the most accurate and detailed information about a product will be the most successful.

We're not there yet, and I think that has a lot to do with the newness of information technology. The vast majority of the internet world are like 3-year olds. They are testing the boundaries of the virtual world, learning how this works with that, feeling, walking, and speaking for the first time. I think these are going to be short-lived trends. Maybe 20 to 30 years, but in the long run, all of this is nothing more than a novelty of our current generation.

Re:Genuine Information

[dzfoo]

>> I believe the Viral Marketing and Stealth Marketing trends will eventually lead us down the road to Informed Marketing. We'll reach a point where we no longer wish to be entertained or distracted by commercials, but rather, the commercials which give us the most accurate and detailed information about a product will be the most successful.

And everybody will love each other, and World Peace will be achieved, and starving children will be fed. Oh, and everyone will get a pony too! Yay! Hurrah for marketing!

            -dZ.

Welcome to Plato's cave

[Richard Kirk]

We cannot tell whether any particular fact is true. All we can do is to try and see how well anything we are told fits in with everything else we know. Suppose, for instance, we were told on a webpage that water freezes at 0 Celsius. We can get a thermometer and some water, and some ice, and do an experiment. All that tells us is that the people who write the web pages are somehow in collusion with the people who make thermometers. Or, at an even lower level, they are colluding with the people who write the dictionary terms for 'water' and 'thermometer'. Or the rules of grammar that determine that the description has a single, unambiguous distinction.

Okay, water does not always freeze at 0 celsius. Zero celsius is the triple point of water. When you actually do the experiments, or make your own observations, then you often find you have to refine the terms. I am not really talking about that. What I am trying to do is to make a distinction between what is 'true' and what is 'false'. We can define 'truth' so strictly that nothing we ever say is precisely 'true'. For the pruposes of this argument, I am going to relax a bit, and argue that statements can be 'true'.

How do we determine whether something is 'true'. Some scientific and mathematical statements are subject to proof or experiment, but we do not usually resort to this. With questions of historical fact, we can sometimes examine the raw evidence (but how 'raw' is that?). Most of the time, what we do is to see whether the new fact is compatible with what we already know. Knowledge has been likened to a boat which never comes into port: but is repaired by the crew using driftwood and materials found at sea. It would be difficult to completely remake the boat becaue it can never come into dock, but it an change over time by gradually expanding or replacing one component at a time. Over time, the whole boat's material may be replaced with new parts, and the whole crew may be replaced by their children, but the sense of their being a boat is preserved.

We should have some suspicion of everything we see and hear. Nothing is ruled above suspicion. However, you may remember the eposode of 'Kung Fu' where two adepts are guided by a venerable old man down a path where they are then robbed. They were both asked what they had learned from the event. The one who replied "trust no-one" was rejected from the monastery. "Expect the unexpected" was the better answer. Without some sort of discernment, there is no difference between the people who deny the Apollo project, and the people who deny the holocaust.

So, what is special about the web? Nothing, really, other than its newness and its versatility. We can post images and videos as well as text, but we also know we can manipulate images and fake videos. I can remember how authoratative some documents looked when printed out using variable-width fonts, when this was rare and expensive. Books tend to be trusted, because they are permanent, and therefore could have been criticised or edited as necessary. However, Erich von Daniken wrote books full of easily refutable facts. One of my favourites was how the island of Elephantine could have only been recognized as the exact shape of an elephant from a flying saucer. It isn't the shape of an elephant at all, as Google maps can show you - it got its name from the ivory trade. Going electronic has probably shortened the gap between posting something and posting the refutation, but the basic mechanism is the same.

Can we make something that gets people wary of clicking on random links, and falling for scams? That is where the scepticism is really needed.

Re:Welcome to Plato's cave

[maxume]

The venerable old man would look a lot less like a self serving asshole if he told the 'trust no one' guy he had a lot to learn and invited him in and told the 'Expect the unexpected guy' very good, move along, nothing for you here.

(What's the difference between your deniers by the way? Some are evil and all are stupid?)

Re:Welcome to Plato's cave

[Lil'wombat]

From the Wikipedia:

The single combination of pressure and temperature at which pure water, pure ice, and pure water vapour can coexist in a stable equilibrium occurs at exactly 273.16 kelvins (0.01 C) and a pressure of 611.73 pascals (ca. 6.1173 millibars, 0.0060373057 atm). At that point, it is possible to change all of the substance to ice, water, or vapour by making infinitesimally small changes in pressure and temperature.

Fake!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously fake.

Trust on the internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you fucking stupid?

Viruses are spread by people

[JasonNolan]

Why believe things you have no context for? If I'm going to read someone's blog, and the blog has only been up for 15 seconds, why would I believe it. IF someone's been blogging for 5 years, and is linked into a network, some of whom I know or know of, the believability will go up. The more viral marketting we get, the better, so the troggs feel stupid about being conned, and they either grow a critical awareness or just head back to the mall. Viruses are spread by people.

No, it Is worse than that!

[Anonymous Coward]

AC said: The issue is that rhetoric has replaced reason in our (American) society ... Thoughtful exploration of events and issues is discouraged in favor of simplistic 'truths'.

How right you are, although the words you use to describe the problem are poor choices. Oh how I wish that rhetoric had become so commonplace! Rhetoric is the art of persuasion and is one of the three original liberal arts: rhetoric, dialectic, and grammer. Of the three, only the last remains in our public school system and only in a watered-down form. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric for a bit more detail regarding rhetoric.

To persuade effectively, one must first exercise critical thinking, discriminating judgment, and insightful analysis with regard to the subject at hand. Instead, we suffer through platitudes and slogans. Today's political analysis is uncomfortably close to the dystopian visions of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

A good way to tell...

[moosehooey]

One good way to tell whether a video is really made by an individual, or by an ad agency, is to notice how good the sound is.

A company typically won't release a video where the sound is hard to hear, and even if the picture is lousy, it'll make the video "feel" too well made. Sound is almost more important than picture.

One area where I think viral marketing would work is for companies to release commercials that are actually entertaining. There have been a number of "real" commercials released, which are too racy/violent/etc. for real television, but they're represented as a commercial. I'd be more likely to watch those because they're not being dishonest.

Asymptomatic Viral Herpes Breeds Cynicism, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe LonelyGirl and BrideZilla should use protection, even if it looks like it's not needed?

Can we trust any anonymous sources of information?

[catchblue22]

What about posts to Slashdot? Or callers to talk show radio shows? Or letters to the editor of a newspaper? Or any other public forum where citizens are supposed to speak as citizens, and not as shills for some hidden organization? I have long suspected that shills from hidden interests/corporations game such forums to their own benefit. After all, what do they have to lose (such posts are anonymous and inexpensive), and what do they have to gain (the subtle manipulation of public opinion in their favor)? I think this behavior is exactly what one would expect from a corporation, since such organizations are institutionally programed act in their own self interest above all else.

If this teaches us anything, it is that we should not form our opinions based on the opinions of some "trusted source". We should instead base what we think about the world on objective facts (as best we can determine), and rational argument based upon those facts. This is perhaps becoming more difficult these days, as sources of facts and rational argument seem to be rare, while sources of opinion seem to be multiplying. But if we as citizens of a democracy wish that our society continue to stay democratic, then it is our duty to diligently seek out the objective truth.

What's Pernicious About That?

[John Hasler]

> ...how these fake blogs or 'flogs' are having a pernicious effect on our
> tendency to trust what seems genuine."

Sounds like healthy skepticism to me.

Re:What's Pernicious About That?

[AWhistler]

Actually, I'd say it sounds exactly like peoples' cynicism to Wikipedia.

Good!

[pluther]

When it comes to believing people you don't know, a healthy cynicism is a good thing.

I wonder if people will start distrusting all those videos that companies make about their products and give to "news" shows to show for them next...

Uncanny valley

[wraithgar]

It has always been my contention that advertising has its own uncanny valley, where the best advertising is either not advertising (real, honest, incidental product endorsement ... which is getting very rare) or something that is apparent as advertising. Anything too close to "reality" is going to fall in that valley and breed this kind of cynicism.

This is a problem for advertisers, as the conclusion or argument of an ad used to simply be "buy me," but in the current digital age it has resorted to simply "watch me." (Listen to the "Commercial Bowl" episode from the Princeton Review LSAT Podcast for a good review of this principle. In order to be seen, the ad must not seem like an ad. Unfortunately, or maybe even ironically, the less it looks like an ad the more it is likely to be viewed with skepticism and cynicism.

What's the solution? Some might argue product placement or something like it, something inseperable from the content. This solves the "watch me" problem, but not the cynicism problem. Perhaps the solution is simply to go back to "this show brought to you by brand x thingamabobs." Be open about it, get people to want your product based on the art you support. That's one approach.

I'm interested to see where advertising goes in the next decade or two. It's almost certain to look nothing like what we are used to today.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

...if true. Now if only people would be less naive about the stuff they read, hear, and see via the old media, a 100 level IQ might be worth something.

Viral Marketing Breeding Cynicism

[StikyPad]

Allow me to be the first to say, "WHAT EVER!"

Trying to prevent an axiomatic truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You tend to look at people and interactions as everyone trying to manipulate you, ..."

That's always true if you actually think about it. Why interact with other people if it has no effect ever? It's simply part of the definition of "interact" - the entities involved must affect one another for it too meet the definition of "interact" in the first place.

Poison pill from traditional media outlets?

[initialE]

Traditional media make their money from advertising. Along comes viral marketing, that cuts them off from their own cashflow. Who is to say they're not poisoning the ground so that advertisers will turn back to them?

Capitalism & marketing

[Nyph2]

Capitalism should be about the best product for the price due to compitition. Due to marketing though, it's the best advertised product that actually gets to the most people. Additionally we have products for which there is no real need, but due to marketing, a market has been created(this is not healthy, yes, it increases the GDP, but the reason we're interested in the GDP is because it's supposed to represent the need for goods and services in the economy which are being met, it's not something we want to increase simply for the sake of it going up). Both of these are marketing seriously distorting capitalist free markets. This distortion is one of the major problems we need to find a solution to if we intend to keep using capitalism(which I think we should, when there's real competition, & actual need for a product, it's incredibly efficient).

A bit more about why this is a distortion of markets:
One of things assumed in capitalism is equity of knowledge, and linked to this, one of the causes of market failure is a lack thereof. This is why we have things like laws against insider trading, lemon laws(for used cars & homes) etc. It is the reason we have a right to get angry at big tobacco... it's not that they simply didn't know it was bad, it's that they did know and kept it from us to keep making money. Marketing is a major source of mis-framed information, or even sometimes misinformation(though there are laws against outright lies in marketing) both of which cause us to make choices which are not actually in our best interest. This type of problem is further exasterbated by the increasing trend of being able to buy & make shills of news companies, and viral marketing(especially without disclosure).

INSERT RANDOM SUBJECT

[yintercept]

To: RANDOM_TO_ADDR
From: RANDOM_FROM_ADDR

How dare you insult marketers.

They aren't clogging the net with spittle and spam.

Marketers take pages with boring content ... then transform them into an art form by adding large blocks of keywords.

RANDOM_AD
START KEYWORD BLOCK
viagra
cheap viagra
v1Agra
v1agra substitoot
hair loss
generic cialis
...

It's an arms race, however you look at it.

[Xenographic]

Well, my personal solution is contempt for all advertising in general, except for the most up-front types (and there aren't enough of those for me to easily think up an example). Sadly, this leaves the marketers to turn, like you said, to attempt to subvert anything we still trust--thus the viral advertisements.

The only solution I have for that is to hold a severe grudge against their products. Thus, companies like SCO, Sony, HP, Lexmark and Microsoft are ones I will never willingly give money to any longer. Granted, their transgressions weren't all advertising related, but exactly the same principle applies--it's a "grim trigger" strategy one way or the other.

That said, there's still something of an arms race. They won't ever stop thinking up new tricks and I have no intention of putting up with whatever new tricks they come up with. If they just want to let us know that they had good products, that's one thing, but some modern marketing techniques are based upon psychological tricks to manipulate people and I won't put up with that.

maybe the fad will die out?

[Serindipidude]

I hope the fad of metoo-tubes that are popping up everywhere will hasten the demise of these pointless video sites. Once they are forced to remove the copyrighted materials that shouldn't be there, what's left? Stranger's home videos and marketing pretending to be stranger's home vidoes. Why would you want to waste bandwidth watching either? And why on earth would you believe any of it if you did?

Cynical?

[bobcote]

Cynical, whatever...

Only stupid people aren't cynical

[aybiss]

When was the last time you saw an ad that made you want to buy something? *NEVER* in my lifetime. Even the dumbest people I know don't see ads as a source of information about products. And seriously, have you looked at these blogs? Only the truly ultimately dumbest of the dumb would think for a second they were made by a real person with a point of view about something. (That's out of the truly ultimately outrageously stupid people who think blogging and reading blogs is a valid way to spend time in the first place).

Ads are just noise, they get as much attention as muzak in shopping centres, warnings on cigarettes and promises from politicians.

The bible is completely wrong on this. Don't believe (let alone buy) anything you aren't looking at.

Aaron.

The Laughing Man

[necro2607]

All of this really makes me think of The Laughing Man from Ghost In The Shell...

Broken Windows and Good Campaigns

[Valdrax]

People love to bash it but do not realize how absolutely necessary it is for our economy. For starters, try doing some research to determine the percentage of our country that is employed in some capacity in marketing/advertising.

Terrible argument. That's the Broken Window fallacy in action. We have a lot of people hired by defense contractors in America. Does that mean that war is good for the country? We have plenty of people hired to track down drug dealers and to keep them in prison. Is drug dealing good for the nation? A lot of money gets poured into cleaning up Superfund sites. Is pollution good for the economy?

Just because a market exists for a service doesn't mean that the service benefits the economy by the mere act of creating jobs.

What about all the GOOD viral marketing that you've seen and gone "oh, cool, thats entertaining".

If it's entertaining, and people readily know that it's marketing, then it's not really viral in my book. I know it's not part of the standard definition, but I don't really consider something viral marketing unless it attempts to deceive the social network its exploiting into spreading word about it. I draw a line between publicity stunts and an attempt to hoodwink people into watching ads by disguising them as something else. That element of deception is what irritates most people here.

It's the lack of respect for the customer base that advertising often shows that rubs people the wrong way. A really good ad is either treated as useful information or entertainment. A bad ad is just an intrusion.

Re:Broken Windows and Good Campaigns

[Lord_Dweomer]

Pardon the brevity of my response since I'm short on time but I'd like to address your last comment...

If it's entertaining, and people readily know that it's marketing, then it's not really viral in my book. I know it's not part of the standard definition, but I don't really consider something viral marketing unless it attempts to deceive the social network its exploiting into spreading word about it. I draw a line between publicity stunts and an attempt to hoodwink people into watching ads by disguising them as something else. That element of deception is what irritates most people here.

The term viral marketing does not have a subjective definition. It is industry jargon defined as that which is spread via word of mouth. There is no positive or negative associations. You seem to basically be saying, "There may be good viral things, but they can only be called viral if they are evil and manipulative". This is just plain false. So while I respect your opinion, you are factually incorrect.

Re:Broken Windows and Good Campaigns

[Valdrax]

So while I respect your opinion, you are factually incorrect.

Oh, you're certainly right on that. I was just trying to explain (in an ineffective way) why a lot of people on Slashdot revile viral marketing but like entertaining examples of it. They, like me, most likely only think of viral marketing as a pejorative instead of the standard definition. They're not hypocrites. They just most likely have attached the term to a different concept in their heads.

Outside of the ad industry, I don't think everyone uses viral marketing as a neutral term. It's kind of like the way that programmers have a hacker/cracker distinction, but the general public uses hacker to cover both. The term carries different connotations from the factually correct definition for a lot of people.

Heh. Then again, outside the ad industry, I don't think most people don't think of the word "marketing" as a neutral term -- could just be my own biases talking here, though.