Buzz marketing up for regulatory scrutiny?
According to the latest edition of Ad Age (print edition), word-of-mouth marketers could run afoul of longstanding advertising law.
It is indeed illegal to pay people to spread goodwill without disclosing their connection to marketers and agencies.
At issue is a potential catch-22 – that disclosure could undermine the value of buzz marketing. While some marketers may feel that way – the article quotes BzzAgent, one of the most successful players in the space, as a company that found it beneficial to have its workers reveal whom they were working for.
According to the article it is still a nascent business – putting its total revenue at around $40-$60M last year, up 100% over the previous year.
That is one way of looking at it. I am sure that there are many word-of mouth marketing campaigns that just cannot be measured because they were truly grassroots/viral.
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October 3rd, 2005 at 3:57 pm
At its core, buzz marketing is really just good old fashioned word of mouth. The moment anyone starts paying people to spread it, it becomes advertising. My company, iKarma.com, helps people capture the credibility of good WOM in a form that can be then be advertised. But the advertising world in general, both online and off is awash with messages that pose as WOM but are really paid advertising. It’s refreshing to discover that there are laws that require full disclosure so people can tell the difference. It would really be nice though if these laws were actually followed. Do anyone have any information about what the penalties for non-compliance? Who enforces these laws? I think it would be interesting to look at some examples of violations that used the internet at their medium. Would something like the early promotion that was done by paid bloggers for movie “The Blair Witch Project” be against the law? Should it be? Very interesting questions!
October 12th, 2005 at 7:37 am
WOMMA responds to AdAge questioning legality of Buzz Marketing
WOMMA (word of mouth marketing association) responded quickly to the article that AdAge published last week (which I wrote about here). WOMMA says that they have a code of ethics that addresses the stealth marketing issues that were brought up…