I received an interesting email from Justin Russell about my comments in the last crayoncast about wheresgeorge.com. Here’s an extract:
I’ve been using the site off and on for the last few years, and while I appreciate the creativity of using Where’s George in new ways, it troubles me that the concept of using its features to write a completely fictional history undermines the whole point of the site. The lack of transparency for something like that bothers me, and I’d definitely look unfavorably on a company that used a vehicle like that as a marketing tool if I found that the story turned out to be false.
He’s right, of course. While the few bills I have entered myself will hardly corrupt the database of 98 million they already have, as it was a personal project I hadn’t thought too much about the larger impact this kind of idea could have upon the existing users of the site.
It also talks directly to transparency in marketing, a hot topic at the moment, and one that quickly bubbled to the top at our Coffee with crayon meetup last week. As a Creative Director, I have to admit to some conflicting thoughts on this issue. The strategist and end-user in me abhors corporations’ attempts to deceive. Edelman’s Walmart blog, and Sony’s flog spring immediately to mind, and evoke a “what the heck were they thinking?” slap to the forehead.
Yet, simultaneously, some of my favorite online marketing campaigns of the last few years have involved deceit or subterfuge as part of their contact strategy, notably Sega’s Beta-7 campaign (perpetrated by last Creative Director, Ty Montague) and Mini’s Men of Metal. And while there was little doubt that brands were behind Audi’s Art of the Heist and Sprite and Jeep’s involvement with the Lost Alternate Reality Game, the playbook of the ARG requires the puppetmaster to construct a narrative that, to participants, borders the gray area where they continually ask “wait, is this real, or part of the game?”.
Unbranded teaser campaigns play in this area too, and in the past we, as consumers, have still been able to distinguish fact from fiction due to the prevalence of mass media channels. A magazine ad, due to it’s cost, will always have an advertiser with an objective. But with the rise of consumer generated media channels, citizen journalism and a completely fragmented media landscape, the canvas on which we paint “unbranded teasers” doesn’t automatically betray it’s origin – something that we’ve all learnt from Lonelygirl15.
Does this mean stealth marketing is dead? And in our mission to reform marketing and PR to make it honest and transparent, are we losing a powerful narrative tool? I’d be interested in your comments.
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