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The copywriter has awoken

Guerilla marketing has gotten a little out of hand as of late.
andrewbyline

Guerilla marketing has gotten a little out of hand as of late. There are stories going around of companies paying popular high school students and fashionable urban young people to walk around and sip the newest soft drink, wear various hip brands of clothes, and listen to the latest music players. The marketers always pick the cool kid, or the beautiful girl, or the supermodel guy – the people that naturally attract the most attention.

The problem is that most people are overwhelmed and inundated by conventional ads, and don’t necessarily trust commercials anymore – but they just might trust the guy on the bus who’s chugging back the latest blueberry sports drink like it was the nectar of the gods.

Unless that guy is wearing an "I work for a marketing company" t-shirt, this kind of marketing is dishonest – whether the walking billboard actually likes the product or not. When you can’t see the strings, how do you know you’re watching a puppet show?

Not content to believe ads or sales people about any product anymore, I’ve recently turned to the Internet for opinions. There are forums and review sites for just about everything, and I’ll visit a dozen or so before I’ll make any big purchase – what any sane, sensible and, yes, frugal person would do.

I’ve always suspected that not all of the reviews I’ve read were honest and accurate – something about the way they were worded triggered the long dormant advertising copywriter in me. There’s a whole B.S. language that’s unique to the cult of marketing. Of course the review writers were always trying to sound like normal people, but they couldn’t quite pull it off.

My worst fears were confirmed last week when a few consumer websites outed a company called Hype Council. Most of what HC does is completely legitimate – website marketing, online PR, web design, etc. – but it seems they have also been going into chat rooms and forums to push products (probably what they refer to as their online "Ambassador" program).

You have no idea who these people are, or the fact they’re being paid by video game and entertainment companies to rave about products. Other forum members can only assume they’re talking to ordinary teens and adults that sincerely enjoy said games, CDs, DVDs, whatever.

That’s why it’s always a good idea to read a lot of reviews – HC reps can spew as much positive verbiage as they want, but they can’t stop people who hated a product from doing the same.

Unless…the company’s competitors are paying another secret guerilla marketer to slam their products! Now that would be ironic.

I guess the bottom line is not to trust any one review, and to heed the words of Smokey Robinson, whose momma told him "you better shop around".

Google poses security risk?

For most people Google is a warm, fuzzy feeling. Their search engine rules, and they made web-based email a pleasure to use. Google Maps is the best place to go for directions and Google News is a one-stop shop for your current events. If you had the balls to invest in Google when most experts said the IPO was overpriced, you would have laughed all the way to the bank as you watched your investment quintuple in a matter of years.

Which is why most people would have been surprised last week when the Electronic Frontiers Foundation – a non-profit group that battles spam, digital surveillance, government interference and censorship of the web (see "China") and other attempts by government to stifle, control, monitor or limit the information highway – took a huge shot at Google Desktop.

According to the EFF the Google Desktop tool, which allows people to search their computers the same way they search the web, actually makes copies of your documents, PDF’s, spreadsheets, and other private materials on Google’s servers. Access to that information is protected by Google, but the EFF believes that the information collected is too tempting to governments and hackers to truly be secure.

"Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google’s search logs, it’s shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF staff attorney Kevin Bankston. "If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don’t configure Google Desktop very carefully – and most people won’t – Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn’t even be notified in time to challenge it.

"Other litigants – your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever – could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."

For more information, visit www.eff.org .

If you’re already using Google Desktop, you might want to change the settings. Visit http://desktop.google.ca/en/ to learn how.