Viral marketing — is it backlash time?
The recent viral campaign by Turner Broadcasting to promote a cartoon show by hanging backlit characters under bridges and highway passes, went bad when they were mistaken for bomb signifiers by the unsuspecting public. While there was no panic in other cities, and the constant fear-mongering in the American media probably played a role in creating a certain jumpiness that contributed to the panic in Boston, the question still arises whether viral marketing is playing a fair game. Much like the movie Borat, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but which was based entirely on the deception of unsuspecting people, viral marketing raises the question of how far one should go in the name of advertising or entertainment.
It is clear to me from my own guilty but vigorous pursuit of celebrity and pop culture news that any press is considered good press these days, because it creates awareness of a product, and in a market where millions of products compete for attention, this attention almost always translates into sales.
But that means that the success of a product does not have anything to do with its quality anymore. I have a problem with that. And we are being sold to in ever more sneaky, underhanded ways which require new modes of protecting ourselves. It makes me want to renew my subscription to Adbusters, which offers anti-consumerist counter tactics devised by disgruntled advertising professionals.