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from today's New York Times Magazine:
quote: July 15, 2001
PHENOMENON
The Secret Agents of Capitalism Are All Around Us
By JIM RUTENBERG
The young people grouped at the end of the bar resemble Gap models. They are facially attractive, in that asymmetrical sort of way, and they wear the new uniform of the Internet cast-aside who still has money to carouse with: tight dark blue jeans, T-shirts a bit too small and hair slightly greased. It's a Wednesday night at a small bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
''I feel so great, so real,'' says a slight young woman with spindly arms and wide eyes. A blue bandanna is tied tightly around her head. ''It's this drink!''
''This drink'' consists of vodka mixed with bottled water. Not just any bottled water, mind you, but the new, lightly flavored variety. Apparently, it is doing wonders for the group as they flamboyantly pour it into half-full glasses of vodka and ice.
''Would you feel the same way with soda?'' a more uptownish brunette excitedly asks her bandanna'd friend. ''No!'' She raises her glass. ''I feel alive!'' And with that, the two heartily clink glasses.
A few people at the bar turn to check them out, briefly, before looking away again. They probably have no idea they've just laid eyes on the secret agents of capitalism, paid shills for a bottled-water company, hired by a small but rapidly growing marketing firm called Big Fat Inc., that claims to have perfected undercover marketing.
As it has become ever harder to reach people between the ages of 12 and 34, advertisers have pushed viral marketing entirely underground, pitching them on the sly and hoping that the message takes and spreads, viruslike, with none of the intended marks knowing the better. This might mean leaving cigarette packs in bars, as tobacco companies have done, or loaning automobiles to ''key influencers,'' as Ford did in 1999, when it placed the Ford Focus with 120 people in five major markets. Or it might mean hiring some of Big Fat's 50 operatives in 30 cities to drink vodka and water at trendy bars.
Big Fat allowed me to spy on the vodka-and-water team on two conditions: that I not divulge the brand of water and that I not identify myself to its operatives at work. But afterward, over the phone, I spoke to the group leader, a young former music promoter named Lawrence (he insisted that I not use his full name). Lawrence, in his late 20's, says the goal for each night is simple: to talk to as many people as possible and, when appropriate, subtly impart the sponsor's message and give his comminglers a taste for its product.
''We invent various scenarios, like, we'll make up what kind of company we work for and we say we just sold it so we're celebrating and we're going to buy you a drink,'' he says. ''Then we'll try to implant things about the product into their head that don't come off as if we're planting things in their head. It's somewhat challenging.'' For that challenge Lawrence earns up to hundreds of dollars a night. ''No one is going to be able to go out and buy a Lexus tomorrow from this,'' he says. ''You're getting paid to go drink for free and act weird.''
Big Fat distributes surveys to potential hires to find out what they wear, where they go out, whether they enjoy talking to strangers. By and large, says Big Fat's chief strategy officer, John Palumbo, he picks people who are accessible and easy to speak with. ''These are not supermodels. They're aspirational, but approachable.''
It's fair to wonder just how many people Big Fat's aspirational marketers can reach (maybe 25 at the bar that night, although if each mark tells 2 others, and they tell 2 more . . . ), but business is booming. Jonathan Ressler, the company's chief executive and president, says billings have increased fivefold since last year, its first year in business. The company has grown so much that it had to move to larger offices last month. And the tactics it employs are becoming ever more widely accepted.
But as undercover marketing grows in prominence among the more mainstream ad firms and sponsors, consumer advocates are agitating for an investigation.
''These are commercial kamikazes,'' says Jeff Chester, a boardmember at the Center for Media Education, a group that focuses on media and marketing issues. ''They're not disclosing that they have received financial remuneration to promote and target products, and that is inherently deceptive.''
The Federal Trade Commission may have problems, too, with companies plugging products without letting their targets know they are doing so. ''If testimonial is affiliated with you in some way, you have to disclose that,'' says Mary Engle, assistant director of advertising practices at the F.T.C. Engle will not comment on whether the new under-the-radar marketing practices are being investigated.
Big Fat's Palumbo, in any case, has no qualms that underground marketing is ''the right way'' to reach young people. ''In order for a product to really succeed right now, the product has to have credibility,'' he says. ''People have to see it, they have to understand it in a real way. The only way for them to understand it in a real way is for it to be in their world. And that's what we do. We put it in their life.''
Ugh...this is as repugnant as it is obvious and brilliant. Of course, the more people who know about this the better, since people's suspicions will be higher.
And of course, it is clear that people have less and less a problem with being shilled to... |
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