Buzz marketing. Viral marketing. Word of mouth marketing. Everyone wants in. Dave Balter does a pretty good job of drawing the distinctions, but let’s talk about facilitation, not distinction.

There are two ways you can facilitate buzz/viral/wom online: (1) give your satisfied audience the tools to spread the word on your behalf, and (2) pay them (in cash or fabulous prizes) to talk about you.

Seeing as (1) is harder to achieve (well, at least the “satisfied audience” part), some marketers are focusing on (2). BzzAgent is probably the best-known of these faciliators. But in the rush to spread the marketing message, does anyone think about the overall societal effects of this marketing technique?

William Gibson does in “Pattern Recognition.” Magda, a minor character, is something of a BzzAgent for various products. Early in the novel, she explains and reflects on her job to the central character, Cayce Pollard:

“I’ll be out on my own, with friends, say, not working, and I’ll meet someone and we’ll be talking, and they’ll mention something. Something they like. A film. A designer. And something in me stops. … I’m devaluing something. In others. In myself. And I’m starting to distrust the most casual exchange.”

One more time: “And I’m starting to distrust the most casual exchange.”

How long before the general public starts to recognize the pattern of paid buzzers and starts to distrust even the most casual exchange between company and customer?

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re providing a quality product at a fair price, do you really need to pay someone to say something nice about you?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 12:01 am and is filed under Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.