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Hey guys,

I interviewed for a guerilla marketing business in San Francisco that targeted web forums.

I was told that if I accepted the job, I was to have at LEAST 50 identities on as many forums as I could muster (they wanted 100 eventually), with a goal of 5 posts an hour. The posts had to be well thought out, and the idea was that I was to establish multiple identities with a history on the forums, so that when the timing was right a well written but subtly placed marketing post could be finessed in. And regular visitors would recognize the post as coming from a long time poster.

They had 12 people working there full time, and were hiring 10 more. You do the math. No wait, I'll do it for you: that's 880 posts a day (if minimum was met). However he said the better ones could do around 8 or 10 an hour. And they had different "verticals" so there was the sports guy, and the games guy, the hentai, excuse me I mean anime guy, etc.

But the most critical point was this: develop and integrate the identity. No random "HEY EB GAMES IS AWESOME BUY THIS" stuff.

Kinda spooky.

Didn't take the job. It was a ****ing mill.

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So what do you all think about that? While the idea itself seems kinda sleazy, I have to admit that there'd be a lot worse jobs than posting on forums all day. Anybody on a payroll right now?

--Enigmatic
 

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Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
 
I saw that and it bothers me some. I mean planting people on these boards just to build up hype for your crappy game. Makes me glad though that I don't typically trust others' opinions on games and I make my own.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Why don't they just recruit long time members of forums, preferably with lucrative packages of free products and slush funds?
 

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Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
You know what would take care of this problem?

An ice cold Mountain Dew.

Go pick one up!
 

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Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 
On the one hand, I don't really care, since it's just video games and I'm always happy to see someone get employed.

On the other hand, I am terrified of the possibility of this method extending to things that could adversely affect people's lives, like medication or insurance.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
I don't necessarily see how this is much different from other types of marketing. It's dishonest and more than a little disgusting, but if marketing people had any sense of shame, morality, or responsibility, they wouldn't be marketing people.
 

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Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 

quote:

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I don't necessarily see how this is much different from other types of marketing. It's dishonest and more than a little disgusting, but if marketing people had any sense of shame, morality, or responsibility, they wouldn't be marketing people.

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I think the difference is that while we can sneer, laugh at or ignore most existing marketing schemes, we (or at least I) can see this one working very, very, very well.
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Crap. Time to move on . . .


 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
When they are first introduced, most marketing schemes work very well. For example, celebrity endorsements were scrazy successful. Then, everyone did it. Most marketing techniqes aren't unsucessful because people see through them so much as the channel gets oversaturated.

The same thing will happen here. If this is a sucessful technique, a bunch of other people will do it too and the internet will be even more awash with shills than it is now.

It's like a locust infestation. The forerunners move in, are successful for a little while and then the others follow and just make things really annoying and destroy people's trust in whatever they were using to trick them with. Then they move on to another channel.

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(Just in case people haven't noticed, I don't really like marketing that much. Or rather, I see it as a nearly unmitigated evil blight on our society and think that, if we can't imprision those who participate in it, at least we should treat them like the moral lepers they are.)
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
Confession: I've been planted here by the Cholent Marketing Board. Cholent: It's What's for Shabbos!
 

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Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
 
We all knew, Tante.

But we d-didn't want to admit it.

(*sob*)
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
*pat pat* Don't cry. Have some Cholent. It'll make you feel better. Or at least, full.
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 
Plants have been in existance a long time. I remember hearing in music history how some composer would plant people in the audience to applause at the right time, etc. Some of the more interesting plants included people who caused controversial outbursts so that it insured the performance hit the front page so the next day everyone would go see it.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
So, how can we tell them? The car thread may be full of them.

And how can we collect for touting products we like? Mountain Dew sure owes peek-a-boo a bunch of royalties, I know that. And CT should collect from Alton Brown, Dr. Bonner's soaps, and definitely that Leonard Cohen dude.
 

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Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
 
*Disappointed that this isn't a gardening thread*
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 
I think this whole forum exists to get us all to buy some guy's books.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Oh no! That can't be! No, I will resist. I. Will. Not. Buy. Card's. Books.

Wait, it's too late.... I've been suckered...
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
Now that I think of it, isn't there someone on this forum (and I'm not sure I remember who) who keeps planting this little image in random threads?
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
What, you mean other than you?
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
I think Tante is best suited for the job. If she spread her posts over 100, maybe 200 forums, she could easily create an entrenched poster or seven and be considered a regular by next week.
 

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Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
 
Somebody, recruit me!
 

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Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
Oh, please, Tante, give up the ghost.
You totally fit the profile of a shill.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
::nods::

Son of Shevester is no doubt just an alt, designed to give the character that is Tante verisimilitude (and a mouthpiece by which to speak to a younger Hatrack demographic).
 

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Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
 
Shouldn't this be here?

Maybe I should get my husband to try this. He spends nearly every waking hour online anyway, and doesn't currently have a job.
 

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Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
 
:/

I dunno about the rest of you, but this idea really disturbs me. I think if anyone I spoke to on a web forum turned out to be a plant I'd end up feeling extremely betrayed. I've grown basically with computers and online. And I consider online friends with just about the same care I do RL friends. Finding out one of them was a plant from some company... I'd be pissed. I'd feel kinda inclined to hunt them down and shut down the company... its lying, litterally. Its false advertising in more than one sense. And its bullshit. It really ought to be illegal.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I could never do such a thing; who I am in RL is who I am online. I would be betraying myself by pretending to be someone I'm not.

Heinz: the one true Ketchup.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
Alcon, I hear you. Have you every gotten a call or note IRL from an old friend, and have it turn out that there's some multilevel marketing scheme they want to recruit you into, or some other commerical reason for the call? It's pretty sad. I'm soooo glad I don't have to do that for a living, to try to ply friendships into commerce.

I think it will be fairly obvious online, actually, and not that hard to spot, just as it is in real life. Honorable people would state up front if they were being paid to promote something, of course. Though I doubt that is what the marketing companies have in mind.
 

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Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
 
Yup, I'm with you as well, Alcon.
 

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Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
Not that hard to spot is relative, ak.
For example, Steven Milloy was a fake journalist/paid shill for Phillip Morris and Exxon (among other payees) for years before he was exposed.

Such paid advocates can do enormous damage while pretending to be independant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy
 

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Posted by human_2.0 (Member # 6006) on :
 
It's all just social engineering.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
Incidentally, the historical plants human was talking about were likely members of a claque, which I've always found a really interesting phenomenom, especially when talking about all the unitended consequences that grew out of this practice.
 

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Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
 
Well, now I'm compelled to analyze the effectiveness of the various "food plants" that have been outed here. KQ, I'm sorry but I have used no more than my normal amount of ketchup, despite at least one smiting, and whether it's Heinz or not entirely depends upon what I bought before I started Hatracking. (probably an admission that will bring the Dept. of Health over to eye the expiration dates in my fridge.) I have tasted not one drop of Mountain Dew despite reading far more of the "dude: cool" thread than I'm sure is mentally healthy. Tante S, however, did come perilously close to influencing me with her cholent campaign, to the point of my interrogating various friends about why they never mentioned this culinary tradition to me. Luckily, my basically lazy nature took over so I haven't tried to make it yet, thus narrowly avoiding betrayal.

Seriously, though, I do remember watching a 60 Minutes or something showing a similar marketing ploy for electronic devices. People got paid to go sit in an e-cafe with some cool new laptop or other gizmo and wait for people to come and ask questions about it.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
That's incredibly interesting, Squick--I wasn't aware of the existence of claques. Kind of a precursor to laugh tracks, it would seem.

So what kinds of unintended consequences are you thinking of?
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
It started out as some guy paying some people to applaud at his performances and developed into a whole industry.

One of the consequences I thought was intereating sort of paralelled the Vedantic shift (I think that's what it's called, but darn if I can remember), where the Vedic priests realized that if the gods always answered their rituals, they actually controlled the gods. The claques, over time, organized and became a force unto themselves in the theater world. So, for example, the went around extorting artists. If you didn't pay them, they'd buy up the same number of seats, but boo and otherwise disrupt your performance. Also, there was some study put into elevating the effect of your claque over that of others, so they actually pioneered some of the research on emotional influencing crowds and general emotional aesthetics. Claques would specialize in enhancing certain types of performances, say one group would do comedies, another tradgedies, another musical performance, etc.

They also expanded beyond the bounds of the theater, and claques were hired to attend political rallies and the like.

I've never really read or seen anything on this, but I imagine that as their presence became routine, it added interesting complexity and a certain disillusionment to the theater experience, which I've always thought would be an interesting thing to track.
 

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Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Tatiana:
Have you every gotten a call or note IRL from an old friend, and have it turn out that there's some multilevel marketing scheme they want to recruit you into, or some other commerical reason for the call? It's pretty sad. I'm soooo glad I don't have to do that for a living, to try to ply friendships into commerce.

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Yeah, a couple of those within the past year, actually. Although both took the form of IMs rather than phone calls, for which I'm grateful. In one case, I think it pretty much ended the friendship because I really want to avoid the guy now. He was totally pushy and I finally had to be a bit snotty to get rid of him. I'm afraid that I'll have a hard time trusting his motives in the future anytime he says or does something in the name of friendship.

Oh well.
 

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Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
 
Uprooted, isn't KQ always pushing some kind of oil she claims is healthier than olive oil, also?

(I wonder if Heinz makes that as well.)

>_>

<_<
 

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Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
 
Psst, from some of the rabid posts I've seen here, I think there might be some Political Plant's here.

Not that I am one.

No sir.

Abramhoff is innocent.

No. No one can buy my commentary.
 

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Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
 
I felt guilty that I had store-brand ketchup in my fridge.

I seriously regretted that I didn't have time to take a trip to Disney that I wouldn't even have thought of without Icarus.

And I've definitely started using my Crock Pot more, although I don't think what's in it could be called cholent.

I think the Hatrack plants are starting to get to me.
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 

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Uprooted, isn't KQ always pushing some kind of oil she claims is healthier than olive oil, also?

(I wonder if Heinz makes that as well.)

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