When you sell something, or as importantly, when you personally recommend or "bad mouth" something by giving your spontaneous opinion, your credibility and integrity are on the line, in my opinion (click on animated image to enlarge).
Before I delve deeper into the deceptive aspects of the specific tool of marketing known as a "website", I want to explore a thought I got at ad:tech San Francisco when I attended BuzzAgent's session there entitled "Word of Mouth as a Media Channel: Designing Your Own Campaign". I also want to make it clear that I am in favor of helping ethical Word-of-Mouth Marketing, because I firmly believe that IF DONE RIGHT (the "devil is in the details"), there is a lot more upside than downside for the consumer. I believe that Yankelovich Partner's "Concurrence Marketing" is right on when they say that the consumer wants (and deserves) more "power" (the AUTONOMOUS KIND) and "reciprocity".
DISCLOSURE: I am mostly in favor of "Search Marketing" where the buyer decides when he is ready to buy vs. the seller deciding when he wants to sell the buyer. Therefore I am, in general, adverse to some kinds of "impulse purchases", unless they fill an actual vs. perceived or "artificially motivated" need. This "search" perspective gives more power and control to the buyer, while usually causing the advertising-marketing to be more "relevant" or "contextual" to the buyer's intent. Yellow Pages and Search Engines provide this approach, which I elaborate more on in my "Relevant Advertising-Marketing Update".
OK, what do I mean by "Complete Disclosure"? In the example of buzz marketing "volunteers", it would mean that ALL THROUGH THE DOWNSTREAM of the buzz process each participant would disclose how the process started. I know, you say this is impossible. But, if a credible study was done that proved that buzz marketers and their clients would double their net income from that happening, watch how fast resources would be thrown at accomplishing that goal. Also, having clearly and conspicuously sized and marked as "samples - not for resale" would help as I noted in my post on "'Buzz Marketing' Definition Clarification".
This along with somehow checking up on the downstream through the use of "buzz checkers" could also help insure no complaints came back to haunt the buzz marketer or his client. These "buzz checkers" could get feedback from deep within the downstream to see if the buzz changed from positive to negative, or just stopped at some point, and why. This, of course, would require tracking the complete (as possible) downstream trail which would also be the "tracking system" regarding the passing on of disclosure. These traceable "buzz communites" would still serve a very positive purpose for the marketer-advertiser.
However, WOMMA says in their "WOMMA Code of Ethics" (#5) that "We promote honest downstream communications", but "Recognizing that we cannot control what real people say or how a message will be presented after multiple generations of conversation, we promote the Honesty ROI in downstream communications." Even Kate Kaye says in her "Missing the Forest for the Bees " that "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."
This is true, but my contention is that as long as ALL participants in the downstream are AWARE of how the marketing message started, then it is up to them to use their "autonomous power" to decide if they want to pass it on with directions to pass on the appropriate disclosure of its origin. Otherwise, unintentional or intentional deception happens, because consumers deserve to know if a "product review conversation" is TOTALLY GENUINE or not (no managed, institutionalized motivation or control involved to help facilitate it).
Even the Cluetrain Manifesto 95 Theses #4 says: "Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived." If the start of the downstream opinions are unnaturally fabricated in any way, they are then "contrived". This is only "OK" if complete disclosure from beginning to end happens, in my opinion.
The necessity to pass on the origins of a "natural" or "everyday" word-of-mouth positive or negative review of a product or service in our conversations is not as great due to, hopefully, no hidden agendas other than naturally generated strong opinions that start the downstream with no written feedback to anyone involved in the entire downstream conversation process.
Kate emphasizes the importance of "conversations" on page 12 of her "Sales Pitch Society II " when she says: "...in most cases, our conversations are the foundations upon which we build our relationships with one another, we shouldn't take it lightly." I just wish Kate didn't appear so cynical (at such a young age - compared to me) by saying "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." It took me many years to get as cynical as she, but now I try to be a cynical optimist, and hope that the threat of legal actions will keep unethical advertiser's and politician's "end justifies the means" tactics at bay.
DISCLOSURE: I met Dave Balter at ad:tech San Francisco, and I have nothing against him. In fact, I am convinced that he believes, wholeheartedly, in what he perceives to be a totally open and honest approach to his business model. The fact that I believe that he was sincerely surprised by how few volunteers redeemed their points for prizes, helps me to trust in his overall sincerity about his business model. However, my opinion is that he has some innocent incorrect thinking about the "Buzz to WOM" transition that happens downstream. I just hope that "the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bathwater".
The "incorrect thinking", in my opinion, came to me when I asked Dave about the downstream, and his answer was something to the affect that "that's where Buzz Marketing turns into WOM." I don't think you can start off with a facilitated, managed, and institutionalized conversation, and end up with "natural-everyday" more genuine one. Why? Because, as much as only products in the product categories the influential volunteers like will be buzzed, that doesn't necessarily mean that the downstream folks will like, or even need, those same products or categories of products. The perfect example of this is Christine's comment # 13 in Ralph Nader's Commercial Alert about the USA Today article on "P&G ‘Buzz Marketing’ Unit Hit With Complaint". She says: "At least I understand now why my 13 yr old son came home from school asking for some noxious smelly deodorant product that “all” the kids are using. He doesn’t even have body odor yet and he already thinks he needs to use this product." This may be an extreme example, but I'm sure there are others, as "peer pressure" is very effective at times, even with older people.
On page 36 of "Sales Pitch Society II", Kate quoted Dr. Walter Carl (who blogged on "Social Critiques of Peer-to-Peer and WOM Marketing Programs, Take 2: Release of Sales Pitch Society II ") talking about what mattered to peers the most in "product review conversations": "Instead what mattered was that they trusted the agent was providing an honest opinion, felt the agent had their best interests at heart and were providing relevant and valuable information." From my search marketing education, I perceive the "keyword strings" to be "trusted", "honest opinion", "their best interests at heart", "relevant" (to THEIR intent), and "valuable" (to THEIR needs).
Now, this facilitated conversation may start off that way from Dave to his front line influential volunteers, but could easily wind up not being that way downstream. Why? Because, if an Indian Chief (the "influential") tells his top warrior about a tomahawk that's the right weight and size for the Chief, by the time it gets to the tenth little Indian the tomahawk may not be as relevant (he's not in the market for a new one), or valuable (he needs a smaller, more light weight, one). But because the facilitated conversation came to him through a peer or influential peer, he may be unintentionally compelled to buy one. This scenario can affect the "trust" with the peer, since he may question whether that peer really had his "best interests at heart" (especially if he gets "buyer's remorse".)
However, in my opinion, if there is continuous, clear, conspicuous, complete and comprehended disclosure that the Indian Chief is somehow being motivated and rewarded by the tomahawk manufacturer (or his BuzzAgent), it may take some of that peer pressure off "to buy", or it may not. But, at least the tenth little Indian may be able to more freely exercise whatever "autonomous power" he has in making that decision.
I don't agree with everything that Ralph Nader has proposed over time, but I did like three quotes from this 5/1/06 article I feel are related to Kate Kaye's observations about societal effects concerning this topic. It is called "Nader urges students to resist corporations", and Nader says: "Undermining parental authority is big business in this country.", and "A person behaving the way our society behaves would be considered clinically insane.", and finally the article says "Nader, 72, challenged young people to break away from the corporate culture, which he called “subservience with rewards."
In conclusion, I just want to add that my idea may be hard to implement, potentially ineffective if not carried out properly, and just be plain old "spin", but at least I am trying to come up with a suggestion to improve the current "negative press - bad reputation" situation when it comes to one specific business model within the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Industry.
12/14/06 UPDATE - The FTC responded to Commercial Alert's petition, and Gary Ruskin posted "FTC Gives “Giant Christmas Present” to P&G, Word of Mouth Marketing Industry". Further discussion on this is at ProBlogger's "Will Affiliate Disclosures Become Required by Law?"
Animated image courtesy of www.artie.com.
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