Adpulp

Advertising News and Know-How

You are here: Home / Word-of-Mouth / Paid Word-Of-Mouth An Oxymoron

By

Paid Word-Of-Mouth An Oxymoron

Broken Type has posted a wicked funny piece on word-of-mouth run amok, as a response to the recent NY Times article on Boston-based w-o-m advocate, Bzz Agent–an article that has several marketing bloggers buzzing.
Here’s an excerpt from the Broken Type piece: “I showed up to the office Christmas party with a festive array of Al Fresco Chicken Sausages strung around my neck like a lei. I wrote an open-source manifesto about Al Fresco Chicken Sausage and distributed it under a creative commons license in PDF form. When telemarketers would call I

About David Burn

David Burn is the co-founder, editor, and publisher of Adpulp.com. David joined the ad agency business in 1997 as a copywriter and then worked for seven agencies in five states prior to launching Bonehook in 2010. Today, David is a writer, brand strategist, and leader of creative teams in Austin, TX.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Evelyn Rodriguez says

    David, I agree contrived word-of-mouth seems to be inherently misguided somehow (I’m still puzzling it out as to exactly what bugs me), but BzzAgents aren’t paid. They are just given the products that they’re interested in participating in a campaign for free. No cash is involved (as far as I’m aware of).
    I just joined (literally, just) to see what all the buzz about BzzAgents were about, so I’ll have more to report soon.

  2. David Burn says

    Evelyn,
    Thanks for clarifying how the process works.
    I’m sure “paid” is on its way from BzzAgents or another group ready to go that route.