11.4.05
Missing the Forest for the Bees
-- OR --
Commandment Alert
If you follow current events, chances are you've heard a lot lately about people being misled. Let's put it this way, if you felt like partying while listening to NPR or watching CNN, a drinking game involving the words "lie" and "deception" could put you in Tara Reid territory in no time. And as in politics, the terms lie and deception are often thrown around in relation to advertising. So, it's no wonder the words make regular appearances in a letter from the anti-commercialism organization, Commercial Alert, to The Federal Trade Commission.

In its 10/18 missive, the Naderized group called for the FTC to "investigate to determine whether buzz marketers are engaging in deceptive practices in violation of the FTC Act, and issue guidelines so that buzz marketers may clearly understand what the law is." It contends that some companies "are perpetrating large-scale deception upon consumers by deploying buzz marketers who fail to disclose that they have been enlisted to promote products. This failure to disclose is fundamentally fraudulent and misleading; and it might violate federal prohibitions against unfair or deceptive acts and practices affecting commerce. An investigation by the Federal Trade Commission could lead to actions against individual buzz marketers, and/or to new guidelines requiring disclosure by any and all persons who are paid to engage in buzz marketing operations."

Now, I do agree with the Commercial Alert's contention that buzz marketing is deceptive and commercializes human relationships, as noted on its website. In fact, I've been using this column as a forum to rail against both stealth and overt buzz marketing tactics for quite some time. I even wrote my 30-something page Sales Pitch Society essay about it four years ago! But that's where I part ways with Commercial Alert. I just can't support the group's knee-jerk "there oughtta be a law" reaction. Call me a cynic, but despite any regulations or ethics codes in place, as far as I'm concerned, deception is as inherent to advertising, as, well, deception is to politics. The fact that Commercial Alert thinks such tactics should be or even could be regulated seems to evince a lack of understanding of the subject at hand.

Even the group's use of the term, "buzz marketing" is a little off. Though many non-traditional forms of marketing often get lumped together by the press, their names aren't always interchangeable. Commercial Alert's letter notes that "Buzz marketing also is known as 'guerrilla,' or 'stealth' marketing,' adding that, "They often are not promoting products and services openly, the way conventional advertising does. Rather they are enlisting people to promote products under the guise of doing something else."

Sure, some companies create sub rosa campaigns, employing people to spread the word about brands without making note of the company that put them up to it. We've all heard or read the tales of the hired hot chick at the bar ordering a cocktail made with some new brand of vodka in an under cover effort to promote the brand and spur word-of-mouth. But, in actuality, buzz marketing, also known as viral marketing or word-of-mouth marketing, is not always conducted in a covert manner. For instance, some of us have also received emails from liquor brands inviting us to a tasting or "educational" event (I get invites from Johnnie Walker from time to time, but I dig the Irish rotgut, myself). While they're fully-intended to get us to pass along those emails to our also-influential friends, attend the event, and talk it up to even more of our buddies at the bar, the messages and the events themselves are well-branded. These types of efforts clearly fall under the buzz marketing umbrella in that they're meant to build word-of-mouth by design, yet they're anything but stealthy.

Enter WOMMA. The unfortunate acronym names the young but growing industry group, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association. It didn't take long for WOMMA to weigh in through a response it released the very same day Commercial Alert announced its letter to the FTC. Rightly so, WOMMA took issue with Commercial Alert's definition of buzz marketing as inherently stealth, but agreed that "Stealth marketing is wrong and the practice is particularly unscrupulous when used to influence teens."

This mention of teens references Commercial Alert's contention that, "Concerns about deception are heightened when minors are the target audience of buzz marketing." This is the same tiresome "save the children" hooey that many other anti-ad organizations tend to latch onto these days. I'll be the first to agree that marketing to malleable-minded wee-ones (especially in schools) is pretty slimy, and have ranted about it time and time again, but by implying that buzz marketing campaigns aimed at adults are somehow less nefarious than those aimed at kids, Commercial Alert only dilutes its argument.

Back to WOMMA. Its counter-statement went on to note that it insists "that any relationship between consumers and marketers be clearly disclosed from the beginning. We also think that disclosure makes messages more powerful, because it makes them more trustworthy."

Yeah, ya know, whenever my friends try to push some product on me, I find their promo propaganda so much more legit when they follow it up with a disclaimer told at Micro Machines man pace.

WOMMA's reaction added that, "Word of mouth is listening to the consumer and giving them a voice….We empower consumers by engaging with them in blogs, message boards, communities, and in the real world." Now this is the stuff that makes me cringe. While there's nothing wrong with companies engaging consumers to better understand them and help improve products and services, word-of-mouth goes well beyond this. The goal of these marketers is not simply to engage consumers, but to prod them to promote their brands for them. If written in whole-truths rather than half-truths, WOMMA's statement would read, "CORPORATE-ENGINEERED Word of mouth is CONDESCENDING to the consumer and giving them a voice TO SPREAD OUR PROMOTIONAL PROPAGANDA FOR US SO WE DON'T HAVE TO….We empower consumers to BUY OUR PRODUCTS, CO-OPT SELF WITH BRAND, AND CORRUPT THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS IN THE PROCESS."

Call me a zealot, but I do believe that advertisers who throw around terms like "brand evangelist" and "brand ambassador" (which word-of-mouth marketers often do) are about as patronizing to those of us with a shred of personal dignity as Dr. Phil.

OK, so what's my beef with Commercial Alert's quest for regulation, then? In its message to the FTC, the organization declares, "The Federal Trade Commission should require any and all persons who are paid to engage in such practices to disclose their relationship to the corporation whose products they are pitching, including their compensation." Hey, I'd like to live in a utopia in which people are open and honest, too, but I'll expect advertisers and their marketing mercenaries to come clean about their unseemly relationships as soon as politicians do. Lord knows there are plenty of laws cluttering up the books that are intended to do that, to no avail. Plus, enforcing such regulations would be near impossible.

The reality is that, even if that day of almighty disclosure comes, it doesn't necessitate that people will place less value on the marketing malarky the product pushers are spewing. Consider this: the celebrity spokes-people who are openly paid to hawk makeup, perfume, and designer duds have no problem appealing to the sheeple. And like these highly-paid celebs, the folks buzz marketers most hope will promote their brands through word-of-mouth tactics, often called "influentials," represent a highly coveted social stratum, each having a wide circle of friends and acquaintances and the perceived clout to influence those people.

The assumption implied by Commercial Alert that disclosure would automatically result in distrust in the buzz marketing shill is doubtful. When I interviewed a young, marketing-savvy woman named Amanda for Sales Pitch Society, she recalled how when she had supervised teams of brand ambassadors to promote tobacco brands surreptitiously in bars, people who found out she was being paid to talk up brands would often ask, "What a cool job! How can I get one?"

The disillusioning truth is that even if the hired-on-hucksters were to disclose their relationships with the companies paying them, enough people have shown themselves to accept and even perpetuate advertiser-engineered buzz -- stealthy or not -- that marketers will continue to use it to entice consumers. I'll give Commercial Alert credit for helping to bring such tactics to the attention of the broader public; however, if heeded, the group's call for regulation will have little effect on the growing number of willing brand disciples who have no qualms about enabling the commercialized corruption of their relationships. In fact, the notion that consumers are victims in need of government protection from buzz marketing denies the simple fact that it's those very consumers spreading the branded word who allow the existence of such schemes in the first place. The government can't save us from our own human tendencies towards lying, servility or gullibility.

Ooh, but that reminds me about this new pill my brand evangelizing friend told me about from Mercky Drugs that's like totally supposed to work….


Send this issue of The Lowbrow Lowdown to a friend!


The Lowbrow Lowdown is available for syndication.

Disclaimer
The The Lowbrow Lowdown™ is a registered trademark. Any use of The The Lowbrow Lowdown™ name or content without consent of Kate Kaye is strictly prohibited.

While best efforts were used in collecting and preparing the information contained herein, The Lowbrow Lowdown™ does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident or other causes.