21. Your comments: Here's my two cents' worth.

The NYT did a good job; they got a reaction. I think the article should have been written by Randy Cohen, The Ethicist at the Magazine. Reason being, the way buzz from Bzz is generated is dishonest.

Yes, I believe in a working, free market system and such-like, but I don't believe J or other critics are arguing that, save the effect such a company may have on other, shall we say, more transparent WOM businesses. (Blogs are transparency-in-action, after all.)

But guess what kids? If you aren't up front with your mates that you're on the take to promote a product, whether or not your reward is material in value, you're being dishonest. And, well, that's just not nice. In fact, it's unethical.

Sure, You don't have to promote it, and I don't have to listen to it. But the Yous are preferring dishonesty, and I will be their dupe.

What's that saying about the company we keep?

Posted at 4:21AM on Dec 19th 2005 by M

22. " Can you imagine your friend calling you up and saying “Hey David, it’s Jason. I’m working with a great new company called Uncle Joe’s Pork Sausages… did you know that Uncle Joe’s only uses grade A quality swine in their sausages?” "

Ending my friendship based my friend earning a living? Sorry charlie, but I don't check my friends at the doors of the ivory tower. My friends pitch me product recommendations all the time, and irrespective of their motivations (pay or passion) I don't plan on dumping those relationships on such flimsy reasoning. Maybe we define friendship differently.

Posted at 4:21AM on Dec 19th 2005 by brandon

23. One of my friends tried this via email recently; they started sending out unusual messages, asking their friends to participate in surveys. I instructed them in no uncertain terms to ever send such a thing my way again, or I'd report them to their internet provider for spamming.

If they were to recommend bad products to me, I'd mistrust all future recommendations. If they recommend products to me unasked, I'll discard all future recommendation. If they recommend one brand over all others, I'll put extra effort into researching other brands.

The more a piece of advertising crosses my boundaries, the more I'll discredit it -- or forget it.

Posted at 4:21AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Richard Soderberg

24. Now here's the spin out of this particular conversation. You see, I actually earn a living by doing a job that is in advertising / marketing communications. In particular, I focus on viral and word of mouth. Now, I don't know what you understand these to mean, however I'd like to let you know, that not everyone is a slime in this business. Yes, it does attract a great deal of the dregs and some diamonds too, however it cannot all be judged as bad.

Any communication which is paid for by a client to an agency, has the intention of wanting to persuade a smaller or larger group of people to consider something. For those agencies that create work that truly sucks and says nothing meaningful beyond a sales-plug - well you can imagine that these guys are clueless. Many of them are still wired on coke and have a certain 'Miami Vice' type arrogance to the work that they do. They should really get over themselves - the 80's are over.

Now everyday, we get bombarded with tons of messages - each of them 'cleverly' designed to unleash our wills and wallets - for something that we don't really need to be able to purely survive. Humankind is different though to other animals; we don't just build a nest out of twigs and other materials like birds do. Oh no, we hew it out of tumbling marble that we slice off a hillside, risking life and limb. Surely twigs are easier? Human beings see the world differently. Some human beings though are convinced that there view of different is actually your view, and they go out to convince - and once that fails - trick you in to nodding away - the problem is that sometimes you just don't realise it. It happens to everyone and probably moreso to the poor soles in advertising that waste most of their money keeping up with the pack - looking and being cool.

Advertising is actually sharing information. There have always been gossipers - who spread the news about "what's going on" - with the invention of mass production - came other "mass thinking" and hence - mass communication. It worked - people responded to it en masse. Like with anything that we gorge ourselves on, when we no longer want to stuff our faces, we turn on that which we just held in such greedy delight. The corporations though were having other ideas; gone were the days when you needed an army to colonise around the globe. You could have bloodless revolutions with the profits that you made, putting them in to action to buy companies around the globe. To do this you need to squeeze your customers; so - a deluge of products - some of them should die gracefully.

People have been starting to filter out the messages, because it's just become either a traffic jam - you're stuck because you are surrounded - or it's a blur of sound and vision. Too much information. It's confusing and I'm also pissed at the distortions of the world that advertising has given many.

There are agencies like BzzAgents and G.I.A - they suck the bottom of the ethical pond. There are ethical considerations to take in to account and you have to remember the one key to all communications. You cannot force word-of-mouth conversations. In many ways they are the by-products of experiences or thoughts. Good viral marketing travels on it's own value. Bad viral marketing is like a chicken bone getting stuck in your throat; you intellectually and emotionally gag - racking up a negative score. Now Bzz and G.I.A. - well they see the world differently. Humans communicate. Most species communicate in one mean or form. The way how these guys think the best way to influence what is communicated, is to seed or load a community or 'opinion leaders' in a community to get them to sell a product or service on to others. I doubt that this is done randomly - people are selected - for the size of their networks and their role in those networks. Personal influence marketing is surely the kamikaze approach towards friendship. It seems to be almost the equivalent of MLM - and that's scary as hell anyway.

WOMMA is on it's own crusade. Nobody seems to know what's really going on there. Now, if you're a Star Wars fan and saw "Episode I" - you will remember the "Trade Confederation" - they had a monopoly on collecting taxes. Well, WOMMA is a trade confederation of sorts and their objectives are somewhat unclear. There are alternatives to their approach, like the VBMA [http://www.vbma.net] - the Viral and Buzz Marketing Association. This is a non-profit organisation that is made up of industry practitioners, academics and other interested parties that play a role in this industry. You don't have to pay $10,000 to join or alternatively $2,500 for another organisation. Knowledge is shared and debates and discussions rage or just flow along, because this is a sensitive area of communications. The whole idea is not to abuse people and their close social networks. Those who do engage in this behaviour have little empathy nor scruples. They think like accountants. They need accurate measures so that they can do their function. Communications is an investment, however it's like a hedge fund - it's risky business. Accountants don't like risk. Profits don't like too much risk, because they can turn in to losses.

The MBA-brained resource management techniques and profitability models, designed to use up as much of the potential and time of staff - is inflexible to understanding that advertising does not have to be cheap and nasty -- and -- that "Return On Investment" may vary down rather than up in the current climate. It's stupid.

So you see, not everyone sees things the same way. I hope that some of my thoughts have at least provided an insight to the cynics. Be skeptical. Be reasonable.

Lastly; Seth Godin.
What did Mark Twain say about eating sacred cows again? Well, what if you eat or are swallowed by yourself. I think that he is a reasonably insightful guy. Does he have any substance though? It would appear so. He's an ideas enthusiast - so you have to take him as you find him - like everyone else ... a human being.

Cheers,

Lyndon

lyndon_at_quozz_dot_com

Posted at 4:21AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Lyndon Lawrence