Friendships, family relationships and other personal connections are central to our security and freedom. For many companies and cults, these relationships are just another medium to be exploited.
Buzz terms like Network marketing and Viral Marketing legitimize making money from your friends. For those desperate to extend their market, friends and family can are convenient targets.
Other companies have created new mediums to invade your personal space in public areas of the neighborhood or city streets, and via the telephone.
Undercover marketing Undercover marketing is a subset of guerrilla marketing where the consumer doesn't realize they're being marketed to. For example, a marketing company might pay an actor or socially adept person to use a certain product visibly and convincingly in locations where target consumers congregate. While there, the actor will also talk up their product to people they befriend in that location, even handing out samples if it is economically feasible. The actor will often be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even noticing it. Also known as “roach baiting”. WIKIPEDIA
“It is real-life product placement, there is no product undercover marketing cannot help... You're going to see real people being sponsored by companies. It's not going to be a superstar but Joe Average, and it'll be cheaper, effective and have more credibility.”
JONATHAN RESSLER, PIONEER OF UNDERCOVER VIRAL MARKETING
“It is a form of cultural corruption at a time when advertising already pervades the landscape. It's much more insidious because marketers are creating culture at the grassroots level, on the streets and where we live.”
KALLE LASN, EDITOR OF ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE.
You will find more on this topic and other emerging manipulation techniques in Chapter Four - The Personal Zone:
Engineering word-of-mouth
Undercover Viral Marketing
Astroturf Organisations
Neuromarketing
Kids' Influence Parents
Are you being recruited?
"...filled with engaging graphics and provocative but easy-to-follow guidelines for maintaining autonomy in a world made of marketing." Douglas Rushkoff
"...filled with engaging graphics and provocative but easy-to-follow guidelines for maintaining autonomy in a world made of marketing."