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A Cautionary Toronto Marketing Tale
In a recent Time magazine article, the
Center for Digital Democracy, (an
organization committed to the
development and encouragement of
noncommercial, public interest
programming), likened guerrilla Toronto
marketing to the "brand washing of
America," a not-so-subtle reference to
brainwashing techniques. Adbusters
bemoans what it terms "cultural
corruption," an unavoidable offshoot of
alternative media activities.
Alternative Toronto advertising blurs the line
between advertising and entertainment,
between advertising and politics,
between advertising and personal
relationships. These are all aspects of
our lives that, upon objective
reflection, most people become
uncomfortable with having marketing
inserted into. In general, people like
to know when they are being sold
something.
Interaction in the marketplace is
different than interaction elsewhere in
life. People are more wary and skeptical
in the Mississauga marketplace, and with good
reason. The Mississauga market is where we go to
spend money, hard-earned money. We do
not want to be persuaded into parting
with our hard-earned money for something
that we either do not need, or for
something of inferior quality, or for a
price higher than we could have paid
elsewhere.
To ensure that this doesn't happen,
people turn on a set of filters through
which they view advertising that they
don't necessarily view other aspects of
life with. When advertising becomes
intermixed with other arenas of
interaction, we may not turn on those
same filters, and become more
susceptible to the message the
advertiser is giving is.
This is exactly what advertisers want,
and exactly why the alternative
advertising market is so attractive. It
is also why the alternative advertising
is the subject of so much controversy,
and susceptible to a greater backlash
than other advertising markets.
Blurring the Line
The question for new media is simple:
When do you cross the line between
subtlety and subterfuge? Author Fay
Weldon lost credibility when it was
discovered she had been paid by Bulgari
to feature the brand in her latest tome,
titled The Bulgari Connection. Sony
Pictures Entertainment took it on the
chin when favorable critic quotes in
movie ads proved to be works of fiction.
Lauren Bacall's blatant flacking for
Visudyne, a macular degeneration
treatment, on NBC's Today Show, prompted
the competing CNN network to revise its
disclosure policies. Even starchy IBM
proved vulnerable to the unexpected
pitfalls of under-the-radar marketing
techniques. Street teams stenciling
sidewalks as part of the "Peace, Love,
Linux" campaign garnered tons of
press... and a $100,000 fine for
defacing San Francisco sidewalks.
Merging fact and fiction, truth and
falsity, advertising and life is a
dangerous game. Advertisers want to be
able to reach people without going
through the normal filtering process. To
this end, they create clever content,
games, and diversions that also double
as advertising. However, the product
being advertised in these new and
creative ways must be satisfactory, at
the very least, and really ought to be
something above and beyond what was
expected by the consumer. If the product
is sub-par, the backlash against the
particular company will be intense.
Perhaps even more troubling to
alternative market advertisers is the
possibility for massive backlash against
the genre in general. Much like
television ads have seemingly played
themselves out in an environment in
which ignoring them is a viable and
easy-to-obtain option, they worry that
the alternative market will suffer a
similar fate, and more quickly. Because
of the delicate balance that most
alternative marketing schemes must
maintain, it will be easier to tip
alternative advertising into oblivion.
It is precisely because of the heights
that alternative campaigns have managed
to scale and so quickly that they are
susceptible to greater falls. The higher
the pedestal, the harder the fall.
These flops in the alternative
advertising market demonstrate a
particular, and perhaps peculiar, facet
of the market: the demand for truth is
much greater in the alternative ad
market than even perhaps in the
traditional advertising forums today.
These kinds of campaigns have their own
unique set of advertising ethics. The
biggest issue in marketing campaigns
designed to create word of mouth buzz is
disclosure of connections. Because word
of mouth is supposed to be a personal
connection, people will trust what is
said more. As has been noted, trust of
people saying good things about a
product increases if the persona saying
the good things is outside of the
advertising world.
So, if you think you're getting an
objective opinion from John Doe about
Product Q, you may be more inclined to
trust it than if you saw a television ad
containing the same information. This is
because you assume John Doe is a regular
person, like you. However, if John Doe
is actually being paid by the company
that produces Product Q, your opinion of
the accuracy of any information he gives
you may change, sometimes markedly.
Disclosure of who is working for whom,
and who is actually just excited about a
particular product becomes a sticky area
in advertising ethics. If the company
discloses that they are paying people to
talk up their product, they risk losing
the buzz that they create. If they do
not disclose, they risk a backlash
against their opaque marketing practices
that take advantage of the general
population’s trust of the general
population.
A Step Too Far
Perhaps the most egregious example of a
good thing gone bad is the New York
couple, Jason Black and Frances
Schroeder, who attempted to auction off
naming rights to their son for $500,000.
There were no takers. The couple said
they were merely attempting to finance
the raising and education of their child
through a practice that has become
increasingly common and popular
throughout all areas of life: corporate
sponsorship.
The public reaction to this display of
what was deemed to be the most base,
crass, money-grubbing behavior scared
away any company that might have been
interested in take the couple up on
their offer. We as a society are not
ready to start turning real people over
to corporations, and one can only hope
that we are never ready for such a step.
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