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Industry Group Sponsors College Course To Create Fake Blog

Posted by kdawson on from the paid-me-to-do-it dept.

Scott Jaschik writes "At Hunter College, professors are debating the ethics of a course in which an industry group paid for a class to develop a fake student who would write a fake blog to discourage other students from buying knockoff products. The controversy involves both commercial interference with academic freedom and the ethics of 'guerilla marketing.'"

8 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. What a screw up. by gnutoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I love the brag. The Industry Conclusion is correct, though not the way they want it to be.

    Conclusion:
    The campaign will live beyond the event as the Web sites will remain live, and students will be reminded by the giveaways to Break the Chain of harmful of harmful events that can result from counterfeiting.

    They are going to have a hard time living this one down. Fake blogs, with more than 300 myspace friends, including Justin Timberlake! What they have managed to do is indelibly link their brands to fake. Hyped, expensive fake regardless of real quality. How do they expect anyone to trust them again? Their stuff is better why? Because they spend money on BS like this? Because the "real" stuff comes from a sweat shop with a sharper whip? It's hard to imagine a better example of the harm imaginary property does and they festering pile of lies that supports it.

  2. Ironic by Presence1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are attempting to create a counterfeit person to persuade people to dislike counterfeit goods.

    Counterfeiting of goods does suck, but this does not seem to be the way to get people on your side...

  3. Educational Standards? by owlnation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You can add patronizing to that list.

    If students are so dumb that they need to be told basic smarts by a blog (fake or otherwise) then they should not be in University.

    1. Re:Educational Standards? by Protonk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      to what basic smarts are we referring? Distinguishing counterfeit products from the real thing? Can you do that unerringly? Can you tell me the difference between a knockoff of windows XP and the real thing? Can you tell me the difference between a knockoff brake cleaner and a brand name brake cleaner? Maybe, but I would hardly classify that as "basic smarts" or a prerequisite to entering college.

      Perhaps you are referring to a willingness to choose the "real" product over the knockoff. Here you are on unstable ground. In some cases (heart surgery, car parts, etc), the quality of the product is not immediately visible to the buyer and can't be divined by inspection. In that case, there is a strong argument to be made that avoiding knockoff products is good sense. You can't eyeball a hydraulic line to see if it will fail catastrophically. In the case of DVD's, CD's and purses, the need is less severe. There isn't a buyer safety issue. if your knockoff version of Rush Hour XXVII sucks, then it isn't the end of the world. the people who suffer are the industry (because they can't sell you a copy of something you already have) so it is THEIR interest that is being protected here, not yours.

      Which part of this is common sense?

  4. Re:Read the full article by Protonk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    where do you people come from? why do you even bother formating this post to quote me and link this? I mean, why don't you just yell at your houseplant or something? Let me know when you have a modicum of understanding of the following words:

    ethics
    severity
    continuum
    contradiction
    proportionality

    Don't strain yourself.

  5. Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- by Darinbob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Authenticity and originality are key to the youth demographic and they know it.

    Oh come on now, let's be serious. Any youth who is original is picked on by the rest of the herd. Anyone who displays product labels prominently as a means of self expression is not being unique, no matter how "authentic" all the other youth claim it to be. The youth demographic is all about peer pressure and fitting in with a group, even for the statistical outliers (goths, emos, hippies, punks, and other counter-culture). The current trend in peer pressure is based a lot upon brand names and having the correct ("authentic") brand names and displaying the brand names to show that you're fitting in, but it's not really that different from the past.
  6. Re:This is not new by Protonk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    are you serious? Do you really think the fundamental problem cited in the article is the existence of the blog? While I conceed the point that students in more hard science fields see corporate sponsorship more regularly, the issue here was that the IACC was obviously dictating course content as well as monitoring the professor for compliance. On top of that, students were forced to do unpaid marketing work for the IACC and not allowed to explore in class the possibility that such a demand might not be right.

    I mean please tell me that you read the article (or even some of the comments explaining it) and you came up with "academic research" and "experimenting with a fake blog". Because if you did, I've got a bridge in brooklyn to sell you.

  7. Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- by NevermindPhreak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think you two are defining two different "youth" groups. You're probably thinking of high-schoolers or college kids. Your parent post is probably thinking of people in their early to mid twenties. From a marketing standpoint, the 18-25 age group is more desirable, or so I'm told.

    You two probably have different personal experiences with "youth demographics" as well.

    Personally, I'm 23. I have a full time job, pay for school on the side, and pay my own mortgage. While I think some commercials are funny (Chuck Norris Old Spice comes to mind), I almost never buy that product. Most of my friends feel the same way.