David Byrne (Talking Heads) warns of the perils of paid word-of-mouth advertising

Link: DavidByrne.com – 2004 Tour Journal.

A Consumer Society
An article in the Times Magazine section on a couple of companies who specialize in word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. These are campaigns, paid for by corporate clients, to raise the awareness and profile of a product by getting a small army of "agents" to drop a mention of the product into casual conversation, carry it (in the case of a book) prominently displayed on the subway, write reviews to Amazon, ask for the product at shops, all without revealing that one is promoting it.
It’s a Philip K Dick world. There are tens of thousands of these "agents" out there. Ordinary people, not necessarily trendsetters or celebrities, who are living breathing advertisements…and proud of it. We don’t know, for example, when someone is merely being helpful of informative, or even friendly, or when they have a hidden agenda. When they’re slipping a bit of product placement into the conversation and when they’re just engaging in the occasional mention of a book or brand as part of normal everyday life. So, in this world, which is our world, no one is to be trusted. No one’s word, on this stuff at least, is to be taken at face value.

I agree wholeheartedly. There’s nothing worse than to be misled by a friend or acquaintance you trust. Word-of-mouth and viral marketing works precisely because the "product evangelist" is not paid by the company. In other words, the value proposition is so great that you will freely promote it to your entourage.

Likewise, negative word-of-mouth publicity, based on lousy service or poor product performance, is equally powerful because a person you trust warns you about using the service or product.

To their credit, the best known of these word-of-mouth marketing companies, BzzAgent, has published a code of conduct they expect their agents to follow. The first point clearly states agents should be "open":

When Bzzing others, feel free to let them know that you’re involved
with BzzAgent, and that you’ve chosen to volunteer your time to share
your opinion. If you like a product or service, it doesn’t matter where
you found out about it, so don’t feel as though you need to be
anonymous or stealthy. Just be open and honest and let your opinion
count.

As a marketing professional and a company co-founder, I have often relied on word-of-mouth and viral marketing to spread the word. But of the free kind.

For the record, I am not currently and will never be a paid agent. I will rave about a product or service because I believe in it, not because I am paid to do so.

And I am not alone:

Doc Searls speaks out against BzzAgent.

Jason Calacanis advocates using a "blog ethics" statement on B2C blogs:

[Blog name] obsessively covers the [industry name] industry. We aren’t paid to mention specific products. All advertising will be clearly labeled as advertising.

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Tagged: marketing

Ecademy Blogs

Doubletalk: What good is PAID word-of-mouth advertising?

Paid and word-of-mouth should not go together ... sounds like doubletalk to me.

Indeed, there's nothing worse than to be misled by a friend or acquaintance you trust. Word-of-mouth and viral marketing works precisely because the "product

alex de carvalho

David Byrne (Talking Heads) warns of the perils of paid word-of-mouth advertising