Fascinating recent NY Times article "The Hidden (In Plain Sight) Persuaders". Read this one with awe and a hint of unplaced fear. BzzAgent and a few other firms "hire" small armies of every day folks to stealthily promote products to their friends in casual conversation. Fascinating because while these people are hired (or more correctly "admitted") to become BzzAgents, they don't do it for $$. Instead the program taps in to people's inner needs to "belong to something bigger," be the "first kid on the block to know about XYZ," and maybe even as a form of therapy:
"In essence, they told Balter that there was nothing wrong with the
rewards; it was just that the rewards weren't really the point. Even
now, only about a quarter of the agents collect rewards, and hardly any
take all they have earned." and,
"What, I asked her, if not the potential to get some free prizes for
effort, made her bother to volunteer with BzzAgent? First, she told me,
she gets the chance to sample new products shortly before they hit the
stores, so she gets to feel a bit like an insider. Second, she has
always liked to give people her opinion about what she's reading or
what products she's using, and BzzAgent gives her more to talk about.
Third, if she does like something, then telling other people is helpful
to them. So participating is both a chance to weigh in and be heard,
and also something close to an act of altruism."
and a woman speaking about her husband's involvement as a BzzAgent,
"She said she thought it had made him more open to other people. He used
to be the kind of guy who just hated to call a mechanic about a noise
the car was making; he would wait until the car actually broke down and
he had no choice but to bother someone about it. He was in a shell. But
that has changed..."
Nothing wrong with those motivations. Sounds like much of what drives open source software. And apparently the program works like gangbusters for BzzAgent's clients. But for how long? It's probably just another immunity people will erect to deal with marketing overload (see also Marqui's use of paid bloggers), but this one could prove a hard strain to resist. Lots of good discussion and commentary going on at Hugh Macleod's post around these issues.
So what's the problem, other than worrying about being duped by a BzzAgent, and adjusting to yet another marketing channel? From the same post, Hugh offers one opinion,
"Jack, I'm not dissing BzzAgents because I think it's "wrong" or
"immoral". If people want to squander their social capital on pimping
supermarket-level products, fine. It's their life. I think BzzAgents is a "crap" idea simply because it doesn't solve
the client's fundamental problem i.e. nobody sincerely wants to talk
about their product."
But it apparently does solve this fundamental problem of kick starting chatter for BzzAgent clients, even if we're uncomfortable with it. So until we're immune or 60 Minutes outs the program, after which BzzAgents run the risk of becoming social pariah's when discovered, it will continue to be a viable sink for marketing dollars.
But there is a kernel of a wholesome, everyone-can-get-behind idea here. An "Open Source BzzAgent" approach comes to mind, where people honestly excited about products can get hooked up with other such folks for laughs and rewards (eg., I'd sign up to somehow formalize or benefit from my tireless Flickr invitation habit). This would have to be very grass roots and bottom up/decentralized, but sounds doable with enough free time and experimentation. This idea and/or project has to be out there already -- I'll hunt around and report back.
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