Friday, February 02, 2007  

A Virus is a Bad Thing, Remember?

Just a few more thoughts on the viral marketing kerfluffle here in Boston. I'm ripping off my own words from the comments on the first post and the thread on the forum.

I think there's a ton of hypocrisy going on with this. If a similar campaign for McDonald's or the U.S. Army went haywire like this, a lot more artsy types would be complaining about it. But because it's for an oddball cartoon that the cool kids like, somehow it's okay.

And that's part of what's so goddamn insidious about viral marketing.

Right now, the prevailing narrative seems to have become, "Oh, those dumb Boston cops. They're so old-fashioned. They don't even know [that cartoon]!" And everyone's so busy feeling hip and superior about getting the joke that they don't realize that their feelings ARE the virus. This is the kind of subconscious/emotional attachment to product that marketers all over the globe DREAM about.

Now being smart and cool and "getting it" is mixed up in everyone's mind with [that cartoon] - that's exactly what every marketing campaign wants to happen to their product in the minds of consumers. You know the commercials that just give you a happy feeling and barely mention the product? It's like that.

And then you've got people putting up blog posts, and making movies, and mashing up graphics making fun of the whole thing - again, proving how hip they are - which only serves to reinforce the utimate [cartoon]=good subconscious connection. What makes it worse is that now people are participating in the marketing scheme whether they know it or not.

It's just Al Jaffee's Nike t-shirt parody ("I'm an idiot that gives free advertising to a multi-million dollar corporation") writ large.

I don't know that that was the plan - I doubt it was - but as far as Plan B's go, it's a guerilla marketer's wet dream.

My friend Amanda asked me what marketers were supposed to do in a world where you can block popups and fast-forward through commercials on TiVO. How are they supposed to get your attention, she wanted to know.

I don't WANT them to get my attention.
They are not ENTITLED to my attention.
I may CHOOSE to give them my attention if they have a product I need or want.

If they try to trick me into forgetting these three things by getting cute and/or viral, then I'm allowed to call bullshit, and that's what I'm doing.

Labels: marketing, viral, why are all my friends so goddamn obtuse

Career of Evil

Here's the short version: the morning commute in Boston, which is usually an exercise in impotent rage anyway, was thrown into complete chaos yesterday because some viral marketers decided to promote a cartoon movie by placing kooky little packages around town. An ever-vigilant citizen saw one under a bridge, called the cops, and transit ground to a halt.

My good friend (or guy I never even heard of, depending on legal circumstances surrounding your inquiry) the American Jerk does an admirable job of taking the cops to task for not recognizing the difference between bombs and non-bombs. AJ is, however, a known scofflaw. My take is a little different.

Now, I haven't seen the cartoon being promoted. My palm glowed red years ago, and I currently live in the ruins of the U.S. Capitol building with Peter Ustinov and a shitload of cats.

Most importantly, I'm also not mentioning the movie being promoted, because my mentioning it is, of course, the whole point of the viral marketing campaign. They do something, everybody talks about it, and voila, free advertising. If there's a lawsuit, they pay it off and still come out ahead. It's all very post-cyber.

I've made my thoughts on viral marketing clear here and elsewhere. I think it's a goddamn menace to the human condition. It's basically an attempt by soul-dead people in suits to hack reality and turn consciousness itself into an ad campaign. No one's described this better than William Gibson, but personally, I was hip to this kind of nonsense years ago, thanks to Mad Magazine's Al Jaffee, who drew a cartoon of a guy in a Nike t-shirt that said "I'm an idiot that gives free advertising to a multi-million dollar corporation."

I'm as serious as cancer (itself quite possibly a marketing stunt concocted by pharmaceutical companies) when I say that cartoon seriously changed my perception of the world.

That's right. I just called Al Jaffee more visionary than Wililam Gibson. I'll stand by it, too.

My hipper friends are defending the stunt, mostly because (a) the packages in question were kind of cute, and (b) the show is apparently very funny. I'm not sure why this is relevant. Does this mean I can shoot a baby in the face as long as I put him in a "My Name Is Earl" onesie before I dispose of the body? What if I take hostages in a bank, and when the SWAT team storms the building and drags me out in handcuffs, I yell, "Don't forget! Knights of Prosperity - Wednesday nights on ABC!"

And really, how do you not realize that placing a package underneath a bridge might cross the advertising/potential terrorist act line just a wee bit? You can't take grape juice on an airplane, for god's sake. You have to assume the superstructure of a major thoroughfare would be off-limits, yeah? Things mean things, you know. It's not all just fodder for ironic nostalgia that VH-1 will market right back at us next year.

I guess my point is this: if there's any group on the planet more loathsome than fundamentalist terrorists, it's viral marketers. They both want to fuck with my morning commute for their own warped ends, and I say we should treat them the same. I want the pre-distressed-t-shirt-and-chunky-glasses-wearing douchebags that came up with this dumbass plan on the next flight to Guantanamo, pronto. Hell, maybe hanging out with the guys already there will do them some good.

I mean, at least the terrorists believe in something.

Labels: american jerk, marketing, terrorism