The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

I used to entertain the daydream that I was a famous baseball player. And in that daydream I fantasized about all the things that would go along with being a famous baseball player: interviews, autographs, commercial endorsements, etc.

But in that daydream I always turned down all the commercial endorsements, with two exceptions: one, I would have gladly done PSAs promoting blood donation, and two, I would have entertained the possibility of doing a Pepsi campaign promoting caffeine-free Pepsi, just to see if I actually had the influence to affect consumption patterns. I've since stricken the Pepsi possibility from my fantasy, though – the stuff just isn't very healthy and I don't want to be part of a campaign to get people to drink more of it. (The blood drive campaign is still viable though, if anyone wants to get in touch about that.)

The reason I was so picky, even locked away in my fantasyland where it really didn't matter, is because I did not want my opinion to be bought. What I like, what I don't like... I want people to know what I think - and I'd certainly like them to agree with me - but I what I really want is for people to be able to believe me when I say it's what I think. If my opinions could be bought, why should anyone do that? Even in my daydream I didn't want to do anything to mortgage my credibility. Agree with me, or don't agree with me – but trust that the opinion I espouse is one I can honestly represent.

Which is why these "grassroots" viral word-of-mouth buzz-marketing campaigns (call them what you will) are so nefarious. Actually, it's why any marketing campaign is so nefarious. They are all designed to create the desire for something, without even knowing why you might want it. Just buy into the buzz, then go buy the product.

At least, though, with a major mainstream marketing campaign it's clear – or at least, it can be clear – that it's a marketing campaign. When Pepsi advertises at the Super Bowl we know it's Pepsi marketing at the Super Bowl, trying to make us see how wonderful Pepsi is. We might succumb to their temptations against our better judgment, but at least we know that's what's happening.

Buzz-marketing is intentionally more subtle, however, and that's what makes it so harmful. Because its method of persuading us involves co-opting our better judgment *without* us being able to realize that's what's going on. The goal is to generate buzz from seemingly unbiased sources so that we believe they are unbiased and thus grant them the ethos to plant the seeds of desire in our minds. I mean, gosh, if everyone's talking about it, it must be good, right?

Unfortunately, with this kind of marketing you can't really be sure of that. Under normal circumstances (meaning, with no marketing campaign driving these comments) if lots of people were raving about something you would tend to think there must be some merit to it. But if that opinion you kept overhearing wasn't spontaneous or naturally-occurring, if rather it had been bought or contrived, then you really can't presume it's such a great thing after all. But you might anyway, because by its very design, there's no way you can really tell. Buzz-marketing is designed to make maniupulated "opinions" masquerade as unbiased ones. And that's a huge problem.

The problem is not that the marketing campaign uses real people, as opposed to celebrity spokespeople. It's also not a problem that it relies on affordable communications technologies rather than expensive advertising space with a major media outlet. A grassroots, organized effort to get many people to speak highly about something isn't necessarily bad. In fact it might even be a good thing in that it lets smaller, less well bankrolled ventures have access to viable marketing channels that let them compete with the Pepsis of the world in the court of public opinion.

The problem is one of transparency. Whether it's a Pepsi commercial or a word-of-mouth campaign, it's essential that the audience be easily able to tell that the good opinion being communicated has been purchased. To allow – or worse, to intend – any other perception about the independence of the opinion is dishonest and duplicitous and discredits the entity that chose to employ this kind of campaign, regardless of the merit to its message.

Personal opinion really is a very potent, very viable persuasive mechanism. It's why, for example, I am so positive about blood drives. When I was a little kid my dad used to (and still does, actually) donate regularly. A person I respected made clear that blood donation was something good, and thus I valued it too. It's a wonderful thing, personal ethos, and should not be so easily cheapened by engaging in these kinds of marketing tactics. Good ideas will win out, as long as we can believe that they really are the good ideas.